The announcement of the Apple iPad has been accompanied by the usual irrationally exuberant, buzzword-laden statements and bellicose grandiosity from the IT punditry about how it will "revolutionize" or "transform" medicine.
However, this will not occur anytime soon, for in medicine, the device may help solve a portability and visibility problem (compared to PDA's), but it will not solve this problem: the mission hostile user experience.
The solution to that problem will require significant human magic.
-- SS
However, this will not occur anytime soon, for in medicine, the device may help solve a portability and visibility problem (compared to PDA's), but it will not solve this problem: the mission hostile user experience.
The solution to that problem will require significant human magic.
-- SS
I believe it is too early to predict,whether Ipad will Revolutionize Medicine or not.It is only a phase now,probably once,it is in market things will change.Although Itouch and Iphone have made significant changes to the way Medicine is approached.
ReplyDeleteIpad is a giant Itouch and Iphone combined.Read NYTimes article:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/technology/personaltech/28pogue-email.html.
Associated with the mission hostile user experience is the transformation of what exactly is the patient. The typical computer's CPOE systems with complex usability has become the patient as users focus intellectual energy clicking their way through ridiculous screens to order an aspirin.
ReplyDeleteWill the IPAD and its load of software devices also become the patient, requiring more time than managing the sepsis?
Anonymous Jan 29 @ 9:22 PM writes:
ReplyDelete"I believe it is too early to predict,whether Ipad will Revolutionize Medicine or not."
It is not too early at all, on first principles.
Believing that all that medicine has been lacking that prevents it from being "revolutionized" is an essentially overgrown iPhone is a hysterical position.
-- SS
There is a large gap between what many HOPE the iPad will do and what it actually CAN do. Tablet PCs have been on the market for many years and promised many of the same things. The limiting factor has been (and most likely will continue to be) software. In the US, CCHIT/Drummond certification (via the ARRA stimulus) will be the badge that differentiates what healthcare facilities will actually support and purchase.
ReplyDeleteI've got another 10 reasons why the iPad won't be deployed in health care if you've got the time.
Good essay, Jared. I don't feel any tablet PC will "revolutionize" medicine. Make it more convenient for clinicians to access data, yes. Revolutionize, no.
ReplyDeleteIt will indeed be revolutionary when we can speak our findings and observations to a tablet, and have it arrive at a differential diagnosis and treatment plans without intervention at the same quality as a good physician.
Freeing doctors from walking to the nursing station or picking up a telephone falls far short of that.
-- SS