Wireless Data Services Are Just What the Doctor Ordered

The FocalPoint Group (www.thefpgroup.com), a San Francisco-based market research and strategic advisory firm, has just completed a leading-edge study on the impacts of wireless data applications in the U.S. healthcare industry. The study projects that more than $7 billion will be spent on wireless data applications in the United States by 2010.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) July 28, 2004 -- Not a day goes by without a politician, journalist, or corporation sounding alerts about the rising costs of healthcare in the United States and the need for change. While most point to the costs of prescription drugs, the lack of insured Americans, or the evils of tobacco use, few ever speak to the ways in which patients and the organizations that serve them can become healthier through technology applications.

The FocalPoint Group (www.thefpgroup.com), a San Francisco-based market research and strategic advisory firm, has just completed a leading-edge study on the impacts of wireless data applications in the U.S. healthcare industry. The FocalPoint study entitled WIRELESS IN HEALTHCARE: A study tracking the RFID, wireless sensor solutions, and telemetry technologies" provides a comprehensive view of the latest applications of wireless data in the healthcare space and the ways in which these applications are being used to improve the overall quality and costs of providing healthcare.

John C. Williams, Managing Director of The FocalPoint Group and author of the study, states, A number of key wireless technologies are emerging to dramatically reshape the way healthcare is provided in this country; a significant opportunity exists for forward-thinking hospitals to not only gain a competitive edge in the marketplace, but to also reduce the costs of care."

Over 770,000 people are injured or die each year in hospitals from adverse drug events. When aggregated nationally, these costs are estimated to run between $1.5 to 5 billion annually. A number of technologies are being used to prevent these incidents, including e-prescriptions that identify potential drug reactions for physicians on a PDA and improve legibility, RFID bracelets that allow care providers to better match a patient with their medications and treatments, and long-range wireless to provide more complete and continuous data feeds about patient health and activities.

The study projects that more than $7 billion will be spent on wireless data applications in the United States by 2010. Technologies, including WiFi, RFID, and low-rate ZigBee modules will be used to improve asset tracking, patient monitoring, and emergency response situations. In each case, these technologies are being implemented in health environments today and expected to reshape the ways hospitals are organized and to process patient needs.

For more information on this report, please follow this link - http://www.thefpgroup.com/FocalPoint_Healthcare_Report.htm

To view the report brochure, please follow this link - http://www.thefpgroup.com/Documents/FP_Wireless_In_Healthcare_Brochure.pdf

# # #