Dive Brief:
- More than seven in 10 clinicians say their hospitals allow some sort of “bring your own device,” or BYOD, use, up from 58% in 2016, according to a new Spõk survey of 350 healthcare leaders.
- The chief reason cited by respondents for barring BYOD was data security.
- Still, 65% of doctors and 41% of nurses report using personal devices even when hospital policy prohibits BYOD.
Dive Insight:
Here’s what else the survey found:
- Nearly 59% of nurses and 38% of doctors prefer hospital-issued devices to using their own.
- Physicians use BOYD the most (62%), followed by IT staff (54%), nurse practitioners (53%) administrators (49%) and nurses (43%). There was also some use among housekeeping and transport staff.
- The top two concerns of BYOD policies are device security (81%) and which devices are supported (76%).
- The top three challenges for BYOD are Wi-Fi coverage (54%), data security (52%) and cellular coverage (44%).
Driving BYOD in 2017 is the desire for easier communication among care teams and cost savings. Respondents also pointed to workflow efficiencies and response to physician demand.
With a number of high-profile cyberattacks and data breaches in the past year, it's no surprise security is a main concerns for executives considering BYOD policies. The Ponemon Institute's Sixth Annual Benchmark Study on Privacy & Security of Healthcare Data found about a quarter of healthcare organizations see BYOD as one of the most worrying security threats.
The National Institute for Standards and Technology developed a practice guide on mobile device security that discusses enterprise mobility management, which entails installing a profile on a device so that it can be monitored and controlled. The problem, critics say, is that many organizations, among them hospitals and health systems, permit BYOD and staff don’t want their personal devices monitored.
Despite the security concerns, providers are looking at a variety of ways to use personal devices to improve care. Last year, Texas-based provider and insurer Vivify Health teamed up with UPMC to monitor UPMC’s patient population remotely. Using Vivify technologies, UPMC clinicians can conduct virtual visits and receive personal data from patients using their personal smartphones or tablets