Study to investigate the adoption of wireless technology in the Australian healthcare system

Due to technological developments, consumer expectations and the competitive business environment, healthcare providers are constantly under pressure to provide higher quality services; but their resources remain limited.One possible solution to meet the increasing demands on healthcare is the adoption and utilisation of new information and communication technologies.These were clearly recognised in an Australian Department of Health and Ageing 1 report of 2005, which states that the adoption of new technologies is crucial in addressing these issues.In recent years some Australian healthcare providers have started using wireless technology to provide services at the point of care, to reduce costs involved in providing data access at point of care, and to reduce transcription errors.However, it appears that in many Australian healthcare organisations, wireless technology is still being used only as pilot projects, employed on a trial and error basis, without proper planning, without proper strategic integration to existing legacy systems, with limited support from top management, and without proper training.These issues have been highlighted by previous studies.While prior studies agree that wireless applications 2 have the potential to address the endemic problems of healthcare, only limited information can be found about the drivers and inhibitors of such applications.Further, it appears that there is no guiding framework for implementing wireless technology in healthcare agencies.This study has identified this aspect as a major issue and posited the following two overarching research questions.Research Question 1: What are the determinants for the use of wireless technology in the Australian healthcare environment? 1 www.doha.gov.au 2 This research study only concentrated on the wireless handheld devices adoption, such as PDA's, Handheld PC's, Pam computers and smart phones for adoption in healthcare setting.No particular applications associated with the healthcare setting was tested in this research study List of publications produced during this research studyGrist, S.,