BlackBerry is thinking about designing a bacteria-free smartphone that could be used in hospitals, as the company aims to become the choice for secure mobile communications within the healthcare industry.
BlackBerry CEO John Chen revealed the information to reporters at a hospital in Toronto where the company launched a clinical alerts pilot project.
According to Chen, workers in the healthcare industry will have one less thing to worry about to wipe clean with the planned bacteria-free smartphone. However, he added that the company is not yet in the development stage for the device.
The Canada-based smartphone manufacturing company has signed into partnerships with Cisco Systems and ThoughtWire to provide doctors and nurses in a unit of the Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital with a portable alert and messaging system. BlackBerry has agreed to provide the devices and software that are needed for the project, but it did not disclose how much it would spend for the initiative.
According to Dr. Aviv Gladman, Mackenzie Health's chief medical information officer, the transferring of bacteria and infections between people and patients within hospitals is a major problem. Devices ranging from mobile phones to the medical equipment located within the rooms of patients can all potentially transport bacteria throughout a hospital, Gladman added.
Gladman also said that professional in the medical industry are instructed to wipe their mobile phones with alcohol before going into and leaving a room of a patient. This is due to the findings of a study that was published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology that around 20 percent to 30 percent of bacteria transfer between the fingertips of people and their mobile phones.
However, hospital are not able to determine if using alcohol wipes to disinfect mobile phones are effective enough at removing the bacteria from the devices. In addition, professional sin the medical field do not always adhere to the rule.
According to Gladman, infections acquired from within the hospital are among the top reasons why patients die inside a hospital, showing the importance on the planned project of BlackBerry for a bacteria-free smartphone.
BlackBerry has shifted its focus as primarily a commercial smartphone manufacturer to a high-security software provider, as it has not been able to compete well with giants such as Apple and Samsung in the industry.
