Going Mobile

Doctors at Veterans Affairs Department medical centers will be able to pull up patient records on smartphones and tablets starting in October, and some top VA officials already are using the mobile devices for nonclassified work. Medical providers at VA's 152 hospitals had been lobbying for years to incorporate mobile devices into their daily rounds, VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker says, but until recently security experts told him devices such as Apple's iPhone and iPad and Google's Android weren't secure enough for veterans' personal information.

With the popularity of the devices growing, though, Baker decided he had to figure out a way to "accept the risk" or VA doctors and residents would figure out how to use them anyway. Already there had been cases of residents putting patient information on an insecure Web-based calendar...