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Recently, doctors, hospital administrators, healthcare IT directors and thought leaders, met in Las Vegas during the HIMSS 2012 Annual Conference & Exhibition. Ranked as one of the largest health information technology conferences in the United States, HIMSS is a huge educational event in the healthcare IT space, and a great environment for healthcare IT workers and vendors alike to discuss current industry challenges.
Not all tablets are created equal. And as The Wall Street Journal highlights this week, many American companies are making big mistakes in taking a “one size fits all” approach to deploying tablets in the workplace.
In “Here Come Tablets. Here Come Problems,” reporter Shara Tibken takes a look at the spread of tablet computers in the enterprise, especially popular consumer-grade devices like the Apple iPad. She highlights some of the challenges companies are facing after rushing massive deployments to their workforce and failing to take into account some important factors, such as a comprehensive deployment and mobile device management strategy, device functionality and information security concerns. Crucially, many companies also are discovering the devices in which they’ve invested aren’t made to hold up to the real-world conditions their employees face.
In the article, Tibken speaks to Maya Leibman, chief information officer for American Airlines, an early adopter of tablets for workers across the company. Leibman admits that the airline quickly discovered that taking a “one size fits all” approach created challenges for their workers.
Recently the General Services Administration (GSA) issued a bulletin that instructs federal agencies to dispose of used electronics in an environmentally friendly manner, often referred to as “e-cycling.” The bulletin, which represents the first set of policies to be issued as a result of the Obama administration’s National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship (published in July 2011), outlines the following:
From hotel lobbies to airport terminals, it’s clear that today’s twenty-first century “road warriors” are much different than the frequent fliers ten years ago. Technology available today allows them to stay connected while traveling, whether they’re on the road or in the air.
In today’s market, mobility is playing an important role for organizations at all employee levels. According to IDC’s recent report – Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2011-2015 Forecast – the world’s mobile worker population will reach 1.3 billion by 2015, representing 37.2 percent of the total workforce. With emergence of this trend, IT management is tasked with providing the best mobile-computing tools that will withstand wear and tear, as well as provide reliable wireless connectivity in order to meet key requirements for today’s mobile worker.
SEER Technology, Inc., headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, creates products that save lives by enabling customers to “see what can’t be seen” in dangerous environments.
SEER Technology has two offerings. The AccuSense Chemical Recognition System gives first responders the capability to detect and identify multiple unknown chemicals, and their concentrations, in a field deployable unit with simple, one button operation. AccuSense has applications for HAZMAT, public safety, industrial settings and the military. For instance, for industrial chemical manufacturers responding to a chemical spill incident, AccuSense provides the capability to assess, quickly and accurately, the potential danger from chemical gas exposure, thus enabling the implementation of response protocols to protect workers and the surrounding population. By wirelessly communicating detection data from the deployed AccuSense instrument back to a remote PC displaying analysis results, the AccuSense system protects first responders from unnecessary exposure to harmful chemical compounds. Additionally, it can be used for day-to-day workplace safety monitoring, fence line monitoring to pinpoint the source of unknown vapors being reported as well as process monitoring to help ensure there are no leaks.
Photo credit: (from left to right) Christina Friberg, Matthew C. Sanger, Ginessa Mahar
From high-altitude surveying in heat-stricken Nevada, to underwater excavation along the Jersey Shore, there’s no question that the work of an archaeologist requires constant digging and screening for artifacts in sometimes extreme environments.
Ginessa Mahar, a lab supervisor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and her colleagues spend their time surveying sites with geophysical equipment and excavating 5000-year-old artifacts. The excavations can take weeks at a time. In one of her recent projects researching the Late Archaic period (3000 B.C. – 1000 B.C.) on a Sea Island in Georgia, Mahar and her team detected fire pits, storage pits, living surfaces, subsurface ditches and mounds, and otherwise disturbed soils. These surveys allow the team to better understand the area, providing data about the site’s layout while helping to guide their excavations.
As auto manufacturers increase the technological complexity of their vehicles, auto mechanics will have to become more tech savvy to keep up with the changing industry landscape. Repair shops are heavily reliant on skilled labor for diagnosis and repair processes. Employees within the industry are required to have a thorough understanding of advanced technology as cars are now built with complex electronic systems and computers.
According to Strategy Analytics, a total of 66.9 million tablets shipped worldwide in 2011. This represents a 260 percent growth from 18.6 million tablets shipped in 2010. In the automotive space, tablets can be especially useful for service advisors and service bay technicians. Service advisors can use tablets to interact with customers in the shop front and provide up to date information on parts availability and vehicle status as well as present visual displays of design options. Service bay technicians utilize tablets on the shop floor to aid in vehicle diagnostics and workflow management.
It’s no secret that enterprises have gone mobile. From retail to field service, more and more industries are utilizing mobile technology to strategically grow business, service clients better and efficiently allocate their workforces’ time. Often these decisions are coming from the C-level instead of the IT department. Mobile vendors are finding they need to get buy in from CEOs and CFOs who have very different motivations than their end users in the field.
While the CEO is looking at mobile implementation as a way to expand the business model, the CFO is tasked with determining if investing in new technology will reduce costs or produce revenue. There are three areas that should be addressed to solidify CEO and CFO buy in: Return on Investment (ROI), Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and management expectations.
When you think about digital signage, you probably think instantly about fancy stadium scoreboards or flashy in-store advertisements. But, think about emergencies when you need to communicate real-time information to a mass audience, from directions to news, and you’ll start to think about some innovative life-saving applications for digital signage in the public sector. Digital signage in the public setting can be centrally-controlled and instantly activated so that you’re able to rapidly communicate information to a large, geographically dispersed population.
Safety messaging is a growth application for digital signage. The medium allows for visual messages to be delivered quickly and clearly, often in multiple languages. In fact, the 9/11 Commission report recommended that notification systems be part of a public safety security solution. Hundreds of colleges and universities are already relying upon digital signage solutions to improve campus communications, especially in emergency situations, where mass communication in real-time is essential.
Navistar Inc., manufacturer of International® brand trucks and other transportation solutions, manages an extensive dealer program designed to ensure quality repair and efficiencies in the dealers’ service bays. The program – called EZ-Tech – standardizes the diagnostic technology and offers dealers the best solution at a cost-effective price.
