“Epocrates, Inc., today announced its top-ranked clinical reference application for the iPhone® and iPod® touch devices will be customized for the new iPad™ computer tablet. The iPad is already receiving a warm reception from the healthcare industry with nearly 20 percent of clinicians expressing plans to purchase in an Epocrates survey conducted days after the Apple announcement.”
Article
Brian Dolan, mobihealthnews, 8 February 2010
Lodewijk, for some little mashup on information on the iPad for healthcare : http://lucienengelen.posterous.com/will-apples-ipad-change-healthcare
Thank you Lucien for the link. Especially the discussion is very interesting. I much appreciated the remark that the talk is about what people hope the iPad will do. BTW the same is true about your remark on timing: “It’s all about timing. EHR, web 2.0, Participatory Healthcare, demographics of patients-population, and it’s sexy”. That is also a dream, a dream of how healtcare might change. The problem with us, who think of and work at these technological aspects and innovations be it EHR or mhealth is that we sometimes forget that the majority of caregivers and the very large majority of patients don’t even know what we are talking about.
As long as simple wearable heart monitoring devices do not get massively used, I don’t think a tablet PC with limited functionality will change healthcare. I even doubt if it will change the way professionals work. It is the old problem, what should be first, the tools or the knowledge? IMO, awareness and knowledge will have to lead the way, the implementation and use of tools will than follow. Does this mean that these kinds of new technical developments are lacking necessity? On the contrary, they will help modify the perception and awareness of people. But their impact will be indirect.