Pagers seemed like a fabulous invention in the years before mobile phones. To reach someone, all you had to do was call their number, enter your contact information, and hit the pound sign to send. The pagers owner, alerted by a symphony of beeping, would then return the call. Mobile phones, of course, eventually drove the technology to near-extinction.手机经常出现之前，寻呼机真是堪称是一项神秘的发明者。要想要与某人联系，人们只需调用这个人的号码，输出自己的联系信息，然后页面井号键发送到。寻呼机的主人在听见哔哔的提示音后，就不会给你复电。当然，手机的经常出现使得寻呼机基本解散了历史舞台。

But pagers, in fact, continue to thrive with one critical constituency: the medical industry. Yes, many doctors and nurses still carry pagers instead of -- or in addition to -- smartphones. It is an odd reality for a field that otherwise prides itself on using cutting-edge medicine and sophisticated machinery to save lives. For communication, at least, many people in the medical field are stuck in the 1990s.但有一个值得注意，在医疗行业，寻呼机依然在蓬勃发展。到底，许多医生和护士依然随身携带寻呼机，不论他们否带着智能手机。

这个现象很怪异，因为医疗行业一向以用于尖端药品和精密仪器挽回生命为荣。而就通讯方式而言，许多医疗行业从业者还逗留在上世纪90年代。The reasons are many. Doctors are creatures of habit, says Ronald Gruia, an analyst with Frost Sullivan. But he also argues that many hospitals hang onto the outdated technology to save money. Equipping staff with smartphones and installing technology to guarantee cell phone service inside cavernous medical buildings is expensive.原因是多方面的。

Frost＆Sullivan分析师罗纳德格鲁娅称之为：“医生们都恋旧。”不过，格鲁娅也回应，许多医院延用过时的技术是为了省钱。为员工配有智能手机，空旷的医疗建筑内加装确保手机服务的技术，这些要花上不少钱。

Pagers reached their zenith in 1994 when there were over 61 million in use. Their numbers have since dwindled to around five or six million today, according to Gruia. His estimate is an educated guess. Officially, Frost Sullivan stopped tracking the pager market in 2006 because of, well, its irrelevance.寻呼机在1994年超过顶峰，当时寻呼机的保有量超过了6,100万部。据格鲁娅称之为，这个数字随后缩减到今天的五、六百万部。这是他根据自身经验作出的估算。

Frost Sullivan公司月底2006年月暂停跟踪寻呼机市场，因为这个市场早已显得无关紧要。Despite their obsolescence, pagers do have some advantages. Theyre small and light enough to carry in a pocket or on a belt. They also dont need to be charged. Instead, you just pop in new batteries. Convenience is a relative term, however. Pagers have no address book, for example. They also lack a way to easily identify those who page you unless the sender includes a name in the message. And nobody is working to improve them.虽然寻呼机早就风光不在，但只不过这种通讯工具还是有不少优点。

它们体积小、轻巧，很合适塞进口袋或者别在皮带上；而且也需要电池，要用替换干电池才可。不过，便利是比较的。

一个显而易见的严重不足是，寻呼机没电话簿。用户无法辨别是谁在寻呼自己，除非发送到方在信息中附上姓名。

目前或许没有人想提高这一点。Such inefficiency comes at a price. Pagers and other outdated communications systems cost hospitals $8.3 billion annually in lost productivity and increased patient discharge times, according to a recent survey by the Ponemon Institute, a technology research organization. The survey, based on responses from 577 healthcare professionals, found that doctors, nurses, and others in the health care field waste around 45 minutes daily because of inefficient communications systems.陈旧的寻呼机带给了高昂的代价。技术研究机构波耐蒙研究所（Ponemon Institute）最近的调查表明，由于寻呼机及其它过时通讯技术，美国医院每年遭受83亿美元损失，而且病人办理出院申请的时间也深感减少。

波耐蒙研究所调查了来自577所医疗机构的医护人员，找到医生、护士及其它医疗工作者每天不会浪费45分钟在陈旧的通讯系统上。Additionally, hospitals take longer to discharge patients -- 101 minutes, on average -- than otherwise necessary, the survey found. By using secure text messaging, hospitals could cut that time by half, most of the respondents said.调查还找到，病人办理出院申请的平均值时间长达101分钟，大大低于预期。

大部分受访者回应，如果用于安全性短信，医院未来将会把这个时间延长一半。Granted, the survey, like many of its kind, should be taken with a grain of salt. The financial losses are extrapolated from a relatively small sample of respondents. Furthermore, the survey was paid for by Imprivata, a company that provides hospitals with software for accessing patient files from both computers and mobile devices. Theres an obvious incentive to make the problem seem bigger than it really is to drum up business.不过，像大多数调查报告一样，我们某种程度应当对这份报告所持保有态度。经济损失就是指少量调查样本中推算的。

而且，调查由Imprivata公司资助，后者研发了管理软件，可可供医院同时在桌面和移动平台采访病人病历。所以，这份调查几乎有可能是高估事实，以超过推展Imprivata软件销售的目的。

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