There’s been an ongoing buzz about the potential impact of the iPad in the healthcare sector. The omnipresence of iPad in healthcare industry, at this point, is not certain although it promises great opportunities in the future of tablet computing platform’s usage in healthcare industry.
The iPad’s enhanced user interface, native support for eReading, immaculate GUI, ability to use numerous medical calculators (a heap of them already present in AppStore) and several other medical apps can be an incredibly rich learning experience for physicians.
All the above mentioned qualities points out towards a possibly best patient-clinician interaction in healthcare, of course it means a better patient education platform. Introduction of iPad in healthcare seems to present itself with countless ways to capitalize, a physician will have complete access to his patient’s records on the tip of their fingers, ability to review a given treatment to any patient, say a surgical procedure, prior to the operation showing rich anatomical details (e.g., a patient’s 64 slice color enhanced 3D CAT scan), potential risks, etc. this is revolutionary! One can also use the video feed for external help or educational purposes.
With a lot of potential in your hand with a simple touch based interface, imagine going into an examination room where your iPad is able to determine which patient you are dealing with and conjuring the appropriate records for you and can now present you with a purpose-driven interface for that particular patient encounter. How many times have you been in a patient encounter only to wind up wasting time navigating through your files trying to find the right information? What if you had an app that organized it all and through context awareness, presented what you needed? With iPad it might be possible to do so in a jiffy.
The initial memory of iPad is 16 Gigabytes but that should be enough to cater a physician’s need regarding patient’s records. You can collect videos about a patient’s condition and treatment then show them while you point out things with the stylus. A 16 Gigabyte capacity means there is plenty of room for a patient’s current chart, including all their imaging tests. You can keep track of your whole day’s work in the palm of your hand even use it to remotely load charts from nursing station as soon as a patient is admitted.
Available for cheap prices (comparing it with Apple’s other merchandise of course) this is almost certainly the future of healthcare and use of EMR. Quite simply, this device transforms medical practice and delivers a solid, easy-to-follow upgrade path directly from paper.
It’s not that the iPad is going to change the scenario completely. But it should prove to be an accelerator of trends that are already happening and are inevitable. It’s cheap, it’s easy to use, it’s got all the power and connectivity you want, and it looks pretty cool too. In short, It’s the right device at the right time!
