Health Care Messaging App for iPhone, iPad Previewed by Avaya

Avaya, a developer of networking and unified communications tools, unveiled a future health care iOS messaging tool along with other new products at the HIMSS12 health care IT conference in Las Vegas.

The company showed its Mobile Activity Assistant, an app that provides secure communication for nurses and hospital staff through text messaging. It will be available initially on iPhones and iPads, but Avaya plans to launch it on other mobile platforms in about six to nine months, Sanjeev Gupta, general manager of Avaya Healthcare Solutions, told CIO Insight sister publication eWEEK.

The application allows nurses to send call alerts and receive critical notifications on patient conditions.

Avaya designed the product after it received feedback from nurses on how they had to run back and forth to their station to respond to call alerts rather than remaining with patients, Gupta explained.

With an app like Mobile Activity Assistant, nurses can receive these alerts on their iPhone or iPad. Using the messaging capabilities of the app allows nurses to balance multiple tasks, such as admitting patients, collecting documentation from different departments and keeping up with phone calls while still seeing patients, said Gupta.

With the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon taking off in health care, doctors and nurses can communicate using Mobile Activity Assistant on a personal or hospital-provided device on the hospital's WiFi network, Gupta noted.

All messages on the Mobile Activity Assistant are sent using secure "closed-loop" communications that conform to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) guidelines, Avaya reported. Various health professionals involved in a patient's care--including doctors, nurses and therapists--can collaborate using text messaging on an iPhone or iPad through Mobile Activity Assistant.