Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: Cell phones don't interefere with hospital devices
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 09:41:16 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: "Steven J. Davidson" <davidson () pobox com> Date: March 10, 2007 6:02:54 PM EST To: dave () farber net Cc: lauren () vortex com Subject: RE: [IP] Cell phones don't interefere with hospital devices Dave-Well, no. It's not the revenue, at least it's not the revenue at the 30 or so hospitals with which I'm familiar through semi-regular meetings with the
physician IT champions and leaders.Hospitals are bureaucratic and conservative; mostly because of the legal and
regulatory environment they inhabit. That's enough of a reason. The relatively unsophisticated implementations and management oftelecommunication technologies in many hospitals perhaps is an additional
contributorIn our organization, which has allowed cell phone usage for about two years now, we had some objections over the unclear benefit of the change to the
organization itself and the fear of social disruptions: that some people--staff, patients, family and others--may behave rudely. Regards to you and your list./Steve -- Steven J. Davidson, MD, MBA, Chair, Emerg. Med. | Maimonides Med. Ctr. 4802 Tenth Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11219 | 718.283.6030/6042 voice/fax -----Original Message----- From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net] Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 22:47 To: ip () v2 listbox com Subject: [IP] Cell phones don't interefere with hospital devices Begin forwarded message: From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com> Date: March 9, 2007 9:11:30 PM EST To: dave () farber net Cc: lauren () vortex com Subject: Study: Cell phones don't interefere with hospital devices Dave, This study reports that while anti-theft devices may interfere with pacemakers, cell phones don't disrupt medical devices at hospitals. This is not a surprising result. While patients at many hospitals are prohibited from using cell phones, it is common for hospital personnel to have them. If cell phones are powered on and available for calls, even if not actually engaged in calls, communication with the mobile networks will occur at intervals. Why does one suspect that a major reason for the patient cell phone bans is to protect the revenue stream from patient calls on the hospital phone systems? True, this is probably a drop in the bucket compared with other patient costs, but every little bit helps, right? http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/03/09/cellphones.hospital.reut/index.html --Lauren-- ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/@now Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/@now Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Current thread:
- Cell phones don't interefere with hospital devices David Farber (Mar 09)
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- Re: Cell phones don't interefere with hospital devices David Farber (Mar 11)