Sunday, February 7, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Apple iPad in Healthcare: Pros and Cons
Apple iPad in Healthcare: Pros and Cons: "
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I’m not really an Apple fan, but I’m always open to innovations in healthcare. Last week was centered around iPad both in the news and the blogosphere as more and more bloggers started to describe its potential role in healthcare. It’s obvious now that healthcare will go through some major changes in the next few years due to EMRs (electronic medical records) and PHRs (personal health records). Though Boston has already gone through this.
Tablet solutions have a clear future (pdf) but as Apple tablet representatives were spotted at Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center a few weeks ago, it seems iPad might have a shot in healthcare as well. Let’s see what can happen.
Possible cons from the healthcare aspect:
- No camera: it means it cannot be used in telemedicine
- No flash: several medical websites use Flash
- No mouse support: it’s not a disadvantage if there won’t be click-heavy applications
- Battery life: It is somewhere around 10 hours which is enough for a doctor working on the hospital but what happens when the iPad gets handed off to the next person? Dying battery can be swapped out for a fresh one in other tablet solutions. Here there won’t be enough time to re-charge iPads.
- It’s too big to fit into a doctor’s pocket.
- iPad is not ruggedized while other healthcare tablets are drop resistant from about a meter.
- No Multi-tasking: it makes it impossible to write a patient report while consulting with a collegue (there are hundreds of examples why multi-tasking is crucial)
- No barcode scanner: it’s used for checking and uploading drugs, among others.
- Such a device should be water-proof and easily disinfected. iPad wasn’t designed for this.
- The iPad has a capacitive touch screen on which gloves won’t work.
Possible pros:
- If there is a company that can get the best out of such a device, that is Apple.
- Probably there will be more and more medical applications designed exclusively for iPad just like there are so many medical apps for iPhone.
- It’s cheaper than other healthcare tablets.
- It was designed to be as user-friendly as possible (a nice advantage of Apple products) so elderly people will also be able to learn to use it easily.
- One scenario might be having an iPad in the hospital as the central database where doctors can upload the information from the iPhones.
If I miss anything, please let me know so I can improve the list.
I think iPad has the potential to become the No.1 healthcare tablet, but it has to go through plenty of changes and innovations in order to become a serious competitor in this race.
Resources:
- MobileHealthNews
- Kevin, MD one and two
- Read Write Web
- Lucien Engelen
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Pictures: The iPad Being Manhandled
Pictures: The iPad Being Manhandled: "
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Okay, we’ve all seen the iPad now. We’ve read all about it. We’ve seen video of it in action. But how is it to actually hold? I took a bunch of pictures of people playing with it in the demo pit today after Apple’s event. The consensus amongst those I talked to? It’s actually quite comfortable.
I played with one myself for a bit and have to agree. While it’s nowhere near as light as a Kindle, it feels much more solid and because it’s significantly larger, is easier to hold with two hands. But it’s also light enough that holding it with one hand is not a burden. And it’s extremely thin. Plus, unlike the Kindle, you can easily swap between portrait and landscape positions.
As for finger smudges, that’s another story. The Apple reps were quick to wipe it off after each demo as it was quite greasy after each hands-on. But the screen is bright enough that you don’t really notice it except around the black edges.
Note the pictures below of it next to the Kindle, as well as it next to an iPhone and an old school iPod.
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Saturday, January 23, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
8 Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2010
8 Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2010: "
Discuss
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Sponsor
Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb!
The eight technologies identified include the following:
Bluetooth 3.0
Mobile User Interfaces + Mobile Web/Widgets
Mobile user interfaces and mobile web/widgets were listed separately, accounting for two items on the list, but we think they can be lumped together. They all point to how mobile computing is rapidly becoming a new platform for everything from consumer mobile apps to B2E (business-to-employee) and B2C (business-to-customer). (Gartner did not include B2B on their list.) Modern day smartphones like the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, the upcoming Pre, and others deliver better interfaces for browsing the web, thus making it accessible to more people. Widget-like applications, including those that replicate thin client technology, will become more common especially in B2C strategies. Yet the mobile web still has challenges ahead. For example, there are no standards for browser access to handset services like the camera or GPS, the report notes.
Location Awareness
Location sensing, powered by GPS as well as Wi-Fi and triangulation, opens up new possibilities for mobile social networking and presence applications. Technology's earliest adopters are already familiar with social networks like Brightkite and Loopt which let you reveal your location to a network of friends. But we're still on the tip of this iceberg. Take for example, the iPhone IM client Palringo, they're just now adding location services to their application. This allows users to see how far away their contacts are, introducing a whole new dimension to mobile communication. Over the next year or two, this sort of technology is expected to become more commonplace, but it will also raise questions about privacy. Will you want your network of online friends and acquaintances to really know your exact location? Will turning off location awareness signal that you're up to something sneaky (so asks the suspicious wife, husband, boss, etc.)? As a society, we will have to answer these questions and more in the near future.
Near Field Communication (NFC)
802.11n & Cellular Broadband
802.11n, a specification for wireless local area networks (WLANs), initially gave us pause. Although not ratified as an official standard yet, the technology is already commonplace. However, until it 'goes gold' so to speak, it won't really infiltrate the mobile world. Even the ubiquitous iPhone only supports 802.11 b/g at the moment.
On the flip side, the other Internet connection technology, cellular broadband, has the potential to make Wi-Fi almost unnecessary, at least for achieving high speeds. In addition to mobile phones, laptop makers will likely continue to incorporate this technology into their netbooks and notebooks using modern chipsets that provide superior performance to our current crop of add-on cards and dongles.
Display Technologies
For more information on these above technologies, you can read through the full report available here on Gartner's web site.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments on how you think the mobile space will be impacted in the future.
Discuss
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Thursday, December 24, 2009
State of the industry report 2009
Mobihealth news
Extract
Apple's iPhone: A game changer for care providers?
A number of hospitals began to take a look at how they could better integrate Apple's iPhone into their overall clinical workflow once it became clear that a majority of physicians (64 percent) now use smartphones (and a growing number of them favor iPhones.) One of the first hospitals to announce its infatuation with the iPhone was Pennsylvania-based Doylestown Hospital, which was the first to be profiled on Apple's corporate site for equipping its care workers with iPhones. The hospital connected the iPhones to its Meditech EMR system. Houston-based Memorial Hermann care facilities followed as a second hospital profiled on Apple's site. Then, news broke that Apple was working directly with EMR vendor Epic Systems to integrate iPhones into Epic's EMR solution for a hospital at Stanford University. Rumor has it that the iPhone-EMR solution will roll out early next year and big care providers like Kaiser Permanente are already taking a look.
One start-up that has begun to capitalize on the iPhone's growing popularity among care providers is Voalte, a Florida-based startup the offers an iPhone-enabled voice, alarm, text service for nurses. The company piloted its application for nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
Extract
Apple's iPhone: A game changer for care providers?
A number of hospitals began to take a look at how they could better integrate Apple's iPhone into their overall clinical workflow once it became clear that a majority of physicians (64 percent) now use smartphones (and a growing number of them favor iPhones.) One of the first hospitals to announce its infatuation with the iPhone was Pennsylvania-based Doylestown Hospital, which was the first to be profiled on Apple's corporate site for equipping its care workers with iPhones. The hospital connected the iPhones to its Meditech EMR system. Houston-based Memorial Hermann care facilities followed as a second hospital profiled on Apple's site. Then, news broke that Apple was working directly with EMR vendor Epic Systems to integrate iPhones into Epic's EMR solution for a hospital at Stanford University. Rumor has it that the iPhone-EMR solution will roll out early next year and big care providers like Kaiser Permanente are already taking a look.
One start-up that has begun to capitalize on the iPhone's growing popularity among care providers is Voalte, a Florida-based startup the offers an iPhone-enabled voice, alarm, text service for nurses. The company piloted its application for nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Non Invasive Health Monitoring with mHealth
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Non Invasive Health Monitoring with mHealth
View more documents from Bart Collet.
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