All too often developers try to solve problems with the latest and coolest technologies. You probably can recognise the “next feature pack will include THE missed feature” disease and its close relative “this feature is now available in only one terminal model, but wait until it is embedded into base platform”. Stop for a second and think if the current problem could be solved with existing enablers instead of waiting for some new killer-enabler to appear.

The trigger for these thoughts was a small piece of news I saw in a newspaper. The story told how a Finnish hospital had used SMS-based alert system to inform patients about available consulting hours in case previous patient had cancelled the time. Another example was the solution that sends an SMS message to patient asking if any of the available times would be OK before the actual reservation is made.

The estimate of the savings these applications generate is really something to think about: for a smallish hospital these solutions are estimated to save nine person’s work every year. Those nine people can now do their work taking care of patients, not sitting at the office answering to phone calls. Simple applications like this might not be technically the most exciting, but what’s most important - they improve the processes using widespread mobile technologies. And when hospital use is concerned, solutions like this save lives when nurses can concentrate on their jobs.