Before the launch of the iPad there were questions of whether apple’s slate device could make it’s way into medicine. A new survey of 178 physicians, nurses, medical students and healthcare IT professionals shows that this could be the year for Tablets to really make their mark in healthcare but maybe not the year for the iPad.
Tablets appear to be a hot item this year as 54% of respondents to the survey said they will likely purchase one this year while just over 20% said they would not, the rest are undecided. The respondents hope to use these tablets for a number of tasks including lab order, prescription drug references, clinical decision support and medical image viewing. The most important thing respondents look for in a device is ease of use followed by the software. So where is the problem with the iPad? Well the graph below shows the most desired features of their ideal tablet device:
Courtesy of Softwareadvice.com
The problem with the iPad is that it only delivers on three of those top features (wi-fi access, lightweight hardware, ergonomic design). This along with the fact that there is, at the moment, no full-scale electronic health record software built to run on the iPad. However, the iPad has not even been launched and if there truly is a market for this product in healthcare then someone will make the software needed. While this study does not appear very positive for Apple I wouldn’t count the iPad out yet. [Survey via Softwareadvice, thanks Chris]
There is a PDM (Patient Data Management) solution called Resonate that runs on the iPhone (and therefore the iPad) and connects to any EHR system. Seems like a quick way to add iPad support to whatever system you happen to already have.