Applaise delivers next-generation tools that combine iPhone, iPad, and other mobile devices with a cloud-computing based intelligent productivity engines to drive significant efficiency improvements in labor management and daily operations at healthcare organizations.

Applaise was founded in March 2008 by former exectives of healthcare software firm Timepoint Corporation, along with a team of physician and health IT advisors. Applaise staff have experience with over 200 major healthcare system installations over a 20 year period.

Research Focus

Applaise products are based on research from 2003-2008 investigating the problem of failed implementations and poor user adoption in enterprise software and ERP. Earlier studies had shown that enterprise software installations on average use less than 20% of the desired features, and can have user satisfaction of less than 15%; prompting some commentators declare the enterprise software industry in "crisis."

Applaise research found:

1. Mobility is crucial. Healthcare users are mobile--physicians, nurses, department heads, and administrators move physically through the facility as a normal part of daily work.
2. Most IS systems don't handle mobility well. Hospital Information Systems are based on the model of fixed data entry on computers, a model of computing that came from the old mainframe systems. As a result, there is a gap between mobile, dynamic staff and fixed, static software design. The data in the software lags the reality of the conditions hour-by-hour, and staff members come to view data entry (often done at the end of the day, transcribed from clipboards to computer) as a tiresome chore. Many facilities have adopted tools (such as "Computers On Wheels") to make data more mobile, but these have limited use.
3. Smartphones Do the Job. Based on this finding, Applaise researchers created the Mobile Productivity Cloud concept, in which the most advanced mobile devices, the iPhone, iPad, and Blackberry, are used as instant data connections to very quickly and easily enter data or get information from software.

Healthcare Industry Leads the Way

The Mobile Productivity Cloud design was inspired by the dramatic growth of Mobile device use by Physicians and Nurses. They are using mobile to access up-to-the minute medical data, scientific research, patient data, and other medical data. This explosion of use indicates that Mobile devices have crossed the threshold, with user interfaces so easy to use and so intuitive, that they have become a fundamental improvement in daily professional work.

Applaise follows this same path. We function on the same mobile devices already being used by these staff members, so almost no training or hardware purchases are required.

Mobile tools should make the user experience so easy that the user perceives it as no effort at all. No one should have to be persuaded to use software -- the benefits should be so immediate and obvious that adoption happens naturally."