• Peter Ray Chai, Haipeng Zhang, Christopher W Baugh, Guruprasad D Jambaulikar, Jonathan C McCabe, Janet M Gorman, Edward W Boyer, and Adam Landman.
• Division of Medical Toxicology, Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States.
• J. Med. Internet Res. 2018 Aug 10; 20 (8): e251.

BackgroundHospital staff frequently performs the same process hundreds to thousands of times a day. Customizable Internet of Things buttons are small, wirelessly-enabled devices that trigger specific actions with the press of an integrated button and have the potential to automate some of these repetitive tasks. In addition, IoT buttons generate logs of triggered events that can be used for future process improvements. Although Internet of Things buttons have seen some success as consumer products, little has been reported on their application in hospital systems.ObjectiveWe discuss potential hospital applications categorized by the intended user group (patient or hospital staff). In addition, we examine key technological considerations, including network connectivity, security, and button management systems.MethodsIn order to meaningfully deploy Internet of Things buttons in a hospital system, we propose an implementation framework grounded in the Plan-Do-Study-Act method.ResultsWe plan to deploy Internet of Things buttons within our hospital system to deliver real-time notifications in public-facing tasks such as restroom cleanliness and critical supply restocking. We expect results from this pilot in the next year.ConclusionsOverall, Internet of Things buttons have significant promise; future rigorous evaluations are needed to determine the impact of Internet of Things buttons in real-world health care settings.©Peter Ray Chai, Haipeng Zhang, Christopher W Baugh, Guruprasad D Jambaulikar, Jonathan C McCabe, Janet M Gorman, Edward W Boyer, Adam Landman. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 10.08.2018.

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