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Mobile medical technology discussion

1. rhoyt
   

   New around here
   Joined: Feb '12
   Posts: 2

   We just published the fifth edition of Health Informatics: Practical Guide for Healthcare and Information Technology Professionals this month. It is available in print and PDF format. (imedicalapps is mentioned in the chapter on mobile technology).

   In your opinion, how important is it to have a medical book available in the EPUB or MOBI format so it can be read on the iPad, Nook, Kindle, etc? It is a tremendous amount of work to reformat a 500 page book to conform with different standards so we are not sure if it warrants the effort. Thanks.....Bob Hoyt MD

   Posted 3 months ago #

2. Ash
   

   Settling in
   Joined: Oct '11
   Posts: 20

   I think PDF is fine for the time being. Most physicians get a lot of information in PDF form (all journal articles, for example), so they will have PDF readers for their mobile devices. I often prefer unrestricted PDFs on my iPad to EPUB books.

   Posted 3 months ago #

3. Felasfa Wodajo, MD
   

   mHealth Senior Editor
   Joined: Feb '10
   Posts: 11

   I agree PDF is the dominant format. Certainly just about every journal article is deployed in HTML and PDF.

   That said, I wonder how long that will last. PDF is a pre-print format, yet print as a major medium will be disappearing. What will be the need to produce an perfect electronic rendition of a printed object ? Screen sizes and capabilities will vary more over time as different types of readers become widespread and the common language will likely be ePub. Personally, I also like that ePub is text and not vectors, so re-flowing text is trivial, copy & paste doesn't do weird things, etc.

   Question for you - were you also considering iBooks author ?

   Posted 3 months ago #

4. rhoyt
   

   New around here
   Joined: Feb '12
   Posts: 2

   I have not looked at iBooks Author but will do so today. Thanks for the tip

   Posted 3 months ago #

5. Marc-Emile Plourde
   

   Settling in
   Joined: Jul '11
   Posts: 28

   I also agree that a PDF version is probably fine for now.

   If you're considering iBooks Author, make sure you read the EULA carefully before committing to the platform. It's relatively restrictive.

   Felasfa: that's an interesting perspective on PDF; I never looked at it that way before, but it makes sense.

   iPhone 4S, iPad, Nexus S
   co-founder Messil (www.messil.com)
   @marckemil on Twitter

   Posted 3 months ago #

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