MDeverywhere of Durham, NC, is one of the companies helping make it happen. Its Web-based suite of MDeverywhere software services helps hospitals and medical clinics manage patient care by having physicians use PDAs for scheduling, ordering, prescribing, note taking -- even dictation and medical reference. The company has about 1,300 physicians in 20 institutions using the services.

Until recently, MDeverywhere docs had to plug their PDAs into a cradle attached to a networked PC to synch with the clinic's back-end practice management system. Now, at least a few of them can update continuously in real time over a Wi-Fi WLAN. They don't even need a PC anymore, or a wired network for that matter.

"We absolutely believe that the world is moving towards wireless," says MDeverywhere vice president of marketing Dan Pollard. "There are policy considerations and infrastructure costs for these organizations, so moving to wireless is something that may take time for some. But when they're ready to start leveraging wireless, we'll be ready too."

The company is in the process of implementing its first pilot Wi-Fi-based wireless installations at some existing customer sites. The main target market will be clinics and hospitals that already have WLANs installed. MDeverywhere won't get involved in implementing WLANs. It is also lab-testing Bluetooth for smaller clinics.

The pre-wireless MDeverywhere service has been in use since 2000. The company sells it as an ASP service, but also has a turnkey onsite server-based offering.

"Most customers have chosen the ASP deployment model," Pollard says. "From their point of view it's much more effective in terms of maintenance and cost of deployment. We're the ones managing the databases and backups and the server hardware. It makes for a very robust service."