According to a recent survey, implementation of mobile strategy by hospitals has almost doubled since 2012. The survey, completed earlier this year, was a follow-up to a similar survey conducted in 2012.

Clinical communication solutions provider Spok developed and deployed the survey, which included 300 healthcare professionals, such as physicians, nurses, IT staff, executives and others. The survey found that the percentage of hospitals utilizing a mobile strategy increased from 34% in 2012 to 65% in 2017.

Other survey findings included:

• While 54% of survey respondents said their mobile strategy had been in place between 1-5 years, one-fifth said their mobile strategy had only been in place for less than a year.
• 70% of those with a mobile strategy in place for more than a year said they had made changes to the strategy.
• For those respondents who had made changes in their mobile strategy, the reasons for change were changes in the needs of end users (44%), availability of new mobile devices (35%) and new features available from their EHR vendor (26%).
• The makeup of mobile strategy leaders has changed since 2012, with CIOs, doctors and nurses 10% more likely to be involved with mobile.
• 14% of respondents reported using outside consultants for mobile strategy in 2012 and 21% are using consultants in 2017.  
• While IT departments are the primary leaders for mobile strategy overall, their involvement has decreased somewhat in the past five years.
• Of the respondents with a mobile strategy in place, 25% said the strategy was not enforced and slightly less than one-third (32%) said they had an evaluation process in place for their mobile strategy.
• Other issues revealed by survey respondents included having a mobile strategy that does not match the organization’s overall strategic goals and lack of effort to promote adoption of the organization’s mobile offering for providers.