If the hospital already has MData for mobile clinical data, buying charge capture yields a near immediate payback--within 30 days. Over 80% of hospitals now say that mobile clinical data is a core product within their technology plans.

However, physicians don't care what hospitals want. Hospitals are satisfied because the doctors are satisfied with their workflow support. Payback, or ROI, is specifically suited to charge capture. There are no less than 50 studies that measure charge capture application ROI. But mobile charge capture is only an application; clinical data is a core technology.

When asked if mobile clinical data solutions are worth the money, 96% of enabled hospitals say, "Yes." It's all about the cart before the horse. The market wasn't suited for mobile charge capture because mobile clinical data wasn't adequately entrenched. Now, the market has a much higher penetration of mobile clinical data systems, and mobile charge capture is being readily adopted.

Gantry: Looking at few of your customers, what areas and levels of payback have your customers achieved?

Ying: Everyone likes to quantify a return. One hospital did a study to measure the increase of computerized physician order entry. While this isn't based in mobility, it is very important for hospitals across the country. Unfortunately, physician use of the hospital's system was infrequent. Within six months after this hospital deployed MData to enable mobile clinical data access, the hospital tracked 11,000 orders placed per month using the system. This hospital didn't quantify in dollars or timesavings, but in achieving its core mission.

Another customer, Baptist Health in Little Rock, AK, quantified time saved in terms of nurses not having to track down and check clinical data information for its physician network. Post MData mobile clinical data deployment, Baptist Health saved $275k per year because the nurses avoided spending 25% of their time chasing down data that physicians didn't have. Physicians had immediate access to this clinical data without the nurse being involved in the process.

Gantry: What MData attributes enable the achievement of this payback level?

Ying: Ease of use by physicians. MData achieves a cost-effective, rapid delivery for physicians. Deployment rollout within a hospital is typically 2-3 months. We've even had cases where the rollout went as fast as one month. The hospital must first purchase and integrate MData into its system. For our solution, a physician can't simply download the personal solution from the Internet. Other charge capture applications on the market have been largely personally downloaded off the Internet. Such applications are not tied into anything, and that's why charge capture hasn't taken off--until now.

Gantry: How do you believe the MData solution differentiates from other mobile charge capture solutions on the market?

Ying: The key differentiation is that our charge capture application integrates into the clinical data. Plus, it's really simple to use and works within the user's workflow; MData doesn't require a physician to do something outside of his/her normal routine. Remember the daily patient census printed up on a piece of paper that the physician folded up and stuffed in a pocket? Now, with MData Charge Capture, the patient information instantly appears. While looking at this patient data, the physician hits the $ button and is immediately taken to a charge capture screen. Right then and there the charge occurs--completely integrated into the clinical data.