GlobalMed, a company providing real-time healthcare delivery systems, has introduced a new enterprise-wide cloud-based solution that delivers visible and invisible light medical images to any Web-connected computer, tablet or smartphone.

Showcased during the HIMSS conference, the new solution — dubbed CONi — allows a physician to enter a SOAP Report that can be saved for later modification or “Finished” and placed into the patient’s medical record.  Once finished, the doctor’s notes cannot be altered or deleted.  In addition, patients and their guests can be given passcode access to their medical images with a limited amount of information.  The images are never resident on computers or mobile devices for security and patient confidentiality.

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Yesterday during the HIMSS healthcare IT conference in Las Vegas, mobile network infrastructure provider Aruba Networks released results of a recent survey showing that 85% of hospitals are currently providing access to personal mobile devices.

In addition, the results show that 83% of healthcare IT professionals allow iPads on their enterprise networks and 65% support iPhones and iPod Touch devices.  Interestingly, 52% of hospitals currently support Blackberry devices as well, which is interesting considering RIMs quick decline in the enterprise space over the last year.  The healthcare industry seems to be one last shining spot for RIM’s fledgling enterprise business.  Lastly, Android is gaining major momentum as well, with 46 percent of the IT professionals surveyed allowing enterprise use of the Google OS on personal phones and tablets.

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Integrated Document Solutions (IDS) has announced that it will debut five new apps during next week’s HIMSS conference in Las Vegas.

According to a company press release, all five apps focus on “unifying worklists and improving accessibility.”  The apps allow providers to wirelessly authenticate verbal orders, dictate patient encounters, remotely sign reports, and document appropriate billing levels among other things.  The apps work across Android, iOS, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile devices.

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According to new survey data out from market research firm the NPD Group, 75 percent of the small to medium healthcare practices polled are looking to buy tablet devices in 2012.

This is despite a somewhat contradictory report published recently by the West Wireless Health Institute that said less than one percent of hospitals have fully functioning tablet systems in place as we enter 2012, citing lack of development in EMR apps and others that don’t give physicians the same experience they’re used.

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It was announced today that Diversinet, who bills itself as a “leader in connected and protected mobile healthcare communication,” has been awarded a patent for its method for storing sensitive personal health information on mobile devices.

U.S. Patent # 8,051,297, “A Method for Binding a Security Element to a Mobile Device,” covers the security of information on smartphones and tablets, and prevents unauthorized access to sensitive data via an “Anti-Cloning Encryption” method.  This method prevents access to the information if it’s transferred to another mobile device and uses characteristics of a mobile device’s unique identity, such as its serial number, to create the encryption passkey.

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It was announced today that two digital health startups are teaming up to create a custom catalog of mobile healthcare applications aimed specifically for use in hospitals and physicians settings.

The two companies entering the partnership are HealthSaaS – a company that provides cloud based solutions for the healthcare industry — and Happtique, a development firm focused on creating mobile app stores for healthcare professionals.  The app catalog the two companies plan to create will facilitate a “secure connection for patients through their mobile phones and tablet devices.”  The technology will link patients to their respective healthcare organizations and even to their personal physicians via a secure network and infrastructure, according to the companies.

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Not even a month after announcing a pilot program that put 1,000 iPads to use in VA hospitals, the Department of Veteran Affairs has decided to go all in and purchase up to 100,000 additional iPads for use in its 152 facilities across the country.

This represents a huge first win for Apple in terms of cracking the government IT market, which is traditionally dominated by Dell and RIM.  Though iPads were chosen for this initiative, VA officials said they don’t plan to limit themselves strictly to Apple devices and will also support Android and Windows-based tablets as well.  What’s interesting is that iPads, while favorable from a consumer standpoint, don’t actually posses the technical and security features that RIM’s PlayBook has for example — requirements that would seem to be important in a healthcare setting.

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