No matter where I go when donning the Voalté scrubs, people stare, and often times (while smiling) ask, "What's with the pink pants?"

This is especially true when attending events such as trade shows, networking meetings, conferences, or even vendor fairs. Curious parties from both IT and clinical pass by to see, use, and demo our unique clinical communication tool – Voalté One.

In addition to Voalté, other vendors are in attendance as well, however, the usual suspects are typically in suit and tie, and as always, my colleagues and I stick out like a horse in a herd of ponies in our pink pants.

So, what's with the pink pants you ask?

It’s not only an expression of our quirky personality and the spunk that we bring to the healthcare industry, but also an external view to what differentiates us as a Company. When we first set-off to start Voalté, we turned to our development partners for some guidance. One of the overlying themes was that there wasn’t a Company that provided exceptional customer service. What we quickly recognized was that there was no Disney, Starbucks or Zappos in terms of the service experience provided by traditional healthcare vendors, and knew that this would be Voalte's opportunity to clearly differentiate itself – which we have.

Our mission is to set a new standard in point-of-care communications, and a key component of this mission, if not THE key component, is the user experience. Part of this experience is our company uniform (i.e. the pink pants and black scrub top) so that besides being memorable in events such as the ones above...we’re also easily identifiable and accessible when we’re out at your hospital during each phase of go live, clinical training and support, or when your Voalté Care Specialist comes back in each and every week to make his or her rounds. It’s part of our promise to make sure that your Voalté experience is nothing short than exceptional. 

I had the opportunity to attend and exhibit Voalté at the Smith Seckman Reid (SSR) Mobile Healthcare Technology Summit in Houston, Texas in May. 

The Summit was a two-hour panel discussion that explored how mobile technology including smart phones, the iPad, and various available applications are impacting the future of healthcare. SSR's Vice President of Communications and Technology Planning Scott Johnson and Project Manager Velma Jackman lead the event. 

When I received the invite and saw the list of esteemed panelists, attendees, and exhibitors I could not help but think we must be on to something here. 

“With mobile device technology and applications rapidly advancing in healthcare, we thought it was important to start a dialogue about the issues and opportunities with industry leaders from different perspectives,” stated Johnson as the reason for the Summit. He continued, “We hope to gain insight about the guidelines needed for best practices, legal implications, and maximizing impact on patient safety and staff efficiencies.” 

The panel tackled critical topics and questions including:   

- Clinicians are embracing mobile healthcare technology. Is technology ahead of practice transformation? 

- Will mobile technology improve efficiency and quality of care? 

- Is FDA approval required on applications for clinician liability and patient safety? 

- Will this emerging technology redesign care delivery? 

Towards the end of the session Scott walked up to our table and stopped to scope out the crowd. I asked him, “Scott…do you think we're on to something here...with healthcare and smart phone technology?” He just looked at me, smiled with all teeth showing, and jokingly said, “Nah, these things are going away soon”. 

For me, the Mobile Technology Summit cemented my conviction in what I do as a healthcare technology consultant, why I do it, and why we all proudly wear the pink pants on this quest to redefine point of care communication. 

It also rooted my belief that while what we are doing here at Voalté is still ahead of today’s healthcare technology adoption curve. We need to stay the course and keep educating Nurse and IT Executives on the growth opportunity and the gap they have to bridge between where they are today and where they need to be tomorrow by leveraging mobile devices at the point of care. 

Most importantly, for me, this summit reinforced a concept that I already knew, but was nice to see confirmed unanimously by my peers and colleagues. By providing an easy and unified solution for voice, alarms and text messaging on an iPhone platform, today's clinicians and physicians find value in using these devices to help them reduce the “clinical chaos factor”, resulting in better outcomes and performance results and greater job satisfaction. 

Do you think we’re on to something here?