Expanding opportunities for handheld technology use in respiratory care.

Changes in health care delivery, reimbursement schemes, and organizational structure require health care organizations to manage the cost of providing care while maintaining high levels of clinical and patient satisfaction outcomes. As an integral part of the health care system, respiratory care departments must contribute to organizational goals that assist with the achievement and maintenance of financial viability. In order to compete on the basis of cost and quality, it is essential to collect and process accurate, timely, and complete clinical quality outcomes and financial information. Integrated computerized systems for order entry, clinical documentation, revenue-capture, and decision support specific to the needs of respiratory care departments are commercially available. These systems are designed to automate clinical documentation, work load assessment, quality monitoring initiatives, billing, and result reporting, and they have demonstrated favorable results.1 Although the value of a respiratory care management information system is difficult to dispute, the cost is often prohibitive.2 Consequently, many respiratory care departments lack such resources and must rely on clinicians to collect and analyze the data through cumbersome, nonautomatedprocesses.Complexand time-consumingmethods often negatively impact the population a respiratory care department serves, through the consumption of valuable time that could be better spent delivering bedside care.