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Well, the short term answer is not much but I believe that Pad computing will become a big part of the EMR/EHR toolkit in the years to come. We’ve already seen a number of applications (apps) written as EMR iPhone interfaces. Those apps will be re-written for the iPad to take advantage of the additional screen space and processing power that will become available.
I predict that a significant number of new apps will be released in the coming year by companies in the EMR space. Remember, the iPad is just a computer, but it is a computer with completely new user interface. It can do most things that other computers do but it does require that new software (apps again) be written to do those things.
As you can imagine opinions on this vary widely. John at EMR and EHR posted yesterday that “My prediction is that we really won’t see many iPad’s in healthcare much at all. Sure, there will be one here or there, but it won’t be widespread and we won’t see an “iPad EMR” that was designed to leverage the interface and technology of the iPad.” Please read his full post, Apple iPad EMR here.
Iltifat Hussain has launched a blog call iMedicalApps where he has posted a list of the iPad customized medical apps that are already in the App Store. The initial list is small but I would expect it to grow dramatically in the coming year.
Lastly Design Dialogues has posted iPad & Next-Gen Tables: A Clinical Viewpoint where they say that “Clinicians are thought to be conservative IT adopters (on the whole) because they don’t pick up every new device, and there is this mistaken notion that they are savvy IT users, because they are smart professionals who work in high-tech locations. My research with specialists and residents shows that more senior docs actually use smartphones less than ever, not more than ever, at least for clinical IT. Yes, there’s interest and better apps will make a difference. But on the whole, doctors use the phones to talk, and the hospital computers to look things up.”
What are your thoughts on the iPad or Pad technology in general as it relates to Electronic Medical Records?
