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RSS feedsIncreasing access to mobile technologies is changing the face of public services. Field staff are freed from desk-bound bureaucracy, citizen access is more flexible, and emergency services are cutting out paperwork and improving response times.
Government and public sector bodies are potentially voracious consumers of mobile IT, according to Carl Zetie, an analyst at Forrester Research.
"In their roles as providers of services, enforcers of regulations, and business partners to contractors and autonomous agencies, public sector organisations have a wide variety of dispersed activities that can exploit mobile IT," he explained.
The emergency services are one of the most obvious areas to benefit from the use of handheld devices and remote access.
Staffordshire Police, for example, is providing GPRS-enabled mobile computers to give officers on the beat secure access to force applications and the Police National Computer.
Fire and ambulance services are benefiting from similar projects. Lancashire Ambulance Service staff record patient data directly into electronic forms running on handhelds. The data is stored on a smartcard which is handed over to accident and emergency staff on arrival at hospital.
And Strathclyde Fire Service fire engines have mounted data terminals carrying GIS mapping information, extensive databases of structural risks and detailed procedural information on how to deal with everything from a tanker spillage to a house fire.
The databases on individual engines are synchronised across the entire area using wireless local area networks in the area's 82 fire stations.
"Getting information to police and fire brigades where and when they require it is an important development," said Mark Blowers, senior research analyst at Butler Group.
Prime areas for public sector use of mobile technology are local government and the health service (see case study below).
Westminster City Council's recent announcement of plans to use a wireless network in the Soho area so that council officers can use PDAs "on the move" is just the latest in a whole range of local authority projects to exploit the technology.
The potential impact is enormous, according to Jill Mortimer, head of futures for the Employers' Organisation for Local Government.
"Interest in mobile technology is growing. Local government has a lot of field workers - social workers, trading standards, environmental health - for whom wireless could be very important," she said.
Projects such as Westminster's are not yet the norm, but a number of councils are now starting to move from trials to live implementations of remote working technologies, explained Jessica Figueras, senior analyst at Ovum.
"Local authorities have really big teams of maintenance professionals out and about fixing street lights, collecting rubbish, running inspections, not to mention social workers and community professionals, all of whom work in a very mobile way," she said.
"This is something that has always been the case - people are not becoming more mobile - but it is now possible to use new technology to have a better balance between doing your job 'on the move' and having to deal with bureaucracy.
"Bureaucracy is increasing because government places a very high demand on public services for reporting, for example.
"The idea is to use mobile technology to allow public service professionals to collect all that data while doing their job. So rather than having to spend more time behind their desk filling in forms, the idea is to keep up with it during the day by carrying the device with them."
The last major area affected by mobile technologies is the interaction between the citizen and the state.
"In the UK, there has been a lot of interest in opening up e-commerce channels to allow people to interact online, and there is now a lot of interest in mobile because penetration has been so high," said Figueras.
"Text message usage has become so widespread that it has penetrated into all groups of society. Things are mostly at the experimentation stage at the moment, but there is interest in electronic voting, and authorising bill payment, and so on, using text messages."
CASE STUDY Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust
Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, known for its treatment and care for people with heart and lung disease, wanted to lessen the time spent by medical staff on updating patient records and digitising notes.
With only 20 per cent of patient data contained in the electronic patient records, the Trust, based at sites in Chelsea and Middlesex, needed to increase the amount of patient information available digitally to medical staff and researchers.
As a result, they initiated a pilot project of Tablet PCs powered by Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, including Windows XP wireless support.
Theoretically, patient records can be called up and notes updated electronically, in the wards. Test results from X-rays, for example, can be shown to patients at their bedsides. Digital Ink technology also makes it possible for staff to take notes, draw or convert their own handwriting to text.
Dr Mark Dayer, cardiology research fellow at Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, uses his Tablet PC daily, and stated that it has become his primary PC.
He does, however, have a problem with the handwriting recognition on the machine. The Tablet PC is supposed to adapt to a person's writing, but he has difficulty with it.
"Also, when you use a medical term that is not recognised, the predictive software tries to change the word and guesses wrong," he said.
The result is that he uses the Tablet PC for typing rather than writing. He added that a solution for this could be a medical dictionary in the Tablet PC software.
Mansel Chamberlain, business systems manager at Royal Brompton Hospital, suggested that a powerful aspect of this mobile solution is that the data can be accessed and analysed much more quickly.
"People don't have to be tied to their desks every time they want to enter new data," he explained. "Eventually we will have up to 80 per cent of our patient data available electronically."
See also:
Mobile working has become a fact of life. In this Computing Special Report we look at the relevant technology, and the effects it will have on your business. 19 Mar 2004
All Mobile Communications
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