The immense impact of COVID-19 on the healthcare sector has led to over 78% of Australian healthcare workers being issued with new technologies, including mobile devices, to support their duties during the pandemic.

Highlighting the value of these new technologies, all healthcare workers agreed that the use of mobile devices to complete administrative tasks while visiting patients in the field, made their jobs easier, particularly during periods of increased demand for services in 2020.

The new research from mobile and IoT management solutions provider, SOTI – which surveyed Australian homecare workers, visiting nurses and nurses in the field, in both private and public sectors – found that 74% of these workers said the main benefit of mobile devices was the ability to access employer systems remotely, which simplified tasks when visiting patients.

“Our latest research, which looked explicitly into how the use of technology can enhance patient care in the healthcare industry, has shown just how significant a role business-critical mobility plays in enabling Australian healthcare workers to do their jobs,” said Michael Dyson, VP of Sales, APAC at SOTI.

“This was particularly true during the pandemic, when healthcare workers were stretched to their limits.”

Overall, 74% of Australian healthcare workers reported using some form of technology to perform daily business-critical duties, with only 26% stating that they still rely on paper-based methods.

“The use of paper-based methods to perform duties such as recording patient information is quickly becoming redundant, particularly because of the inefficiencies of such a manual process, security concerns and its unstructured nature,” said Michael.

“If the pandemic has taught the healthcare industry anything, it’s that speed, efficiency and security is key, and without the right technology in place to support this, the prioritisation of patient care begins to take a back seat.”

Despite the high level of technology use in the Australian healthcare industry, 44% of healthcare workers said they had experienced technical difficulties when searching for medical records, tests results and allergen information, as well as frequent technical issues causing downtime (36%).

A further 44% of workers said their biggest concern was the security of patient information and 58% also said that technical issues were a result of current systems not being integrated properly.

“Above all, our research has shown that the deployment of technology plays a crucial role in supporting essential healthcare workers on the frontline to perform their duties and spend most of their time providing patient care.

However, it is a concern that there are still major issues around the performance, connectivity and security of deployed technologies in the healthcare industry in Australia.

It is critical that healthcare providers are implementing and equipping healthcare workers with the most up-to-date technologies, backed by advanced and secure systems, including an integrated mobility and IoT management platform.

Those healthcare providers who are making these investments are paving the way for better healthcare practice, and at the same time helping their frontline workers devote more of their time to caring for patients,” added Michael.