iPad medical
iPad hands on review: Fits in your white coat and is fast enough for Medical point of care use [Healthcare Perspective]
We’re giving away 15 copies of a popular iPhone medical app that has been customized for the iPad in the comments section.
The iPad has finally been released and we’ve got our hands on one so we can provide the medical community a healthcare perspective of the device. I’ve been using the iPad for the last two days, and these are the initial impressions.
Fits in your white Coat:
The iPad should fit comfortably your white coat. If you continue on to the rest of the review you’ll see pictures of the iPad easily settling into my white coat, along with my stethoscope. Granted, my white coat has been thoroughly stretched out with mini medical reference books, papers, and medical devices, but even with a fresh white coat, you shouldn’t have problems tucking away your iPad.
For the iPad to be seriously used in the medical setting, this type of convenience is key. I can’t imagine carrying it around while I juggle patient notes and other necessities.
The iPad feels heavy in your hands(1.5 pounds), but is thin, measuring half an inch in depth. The ends of the iPad are tapered, making it feel significantly thinner. The heavy feel is almost welcome and assuring, it makes the iPad feel strong – making you feel like a drop, with a case on it, wouldn’t break it. This type of build quality is expected from an Apple device.
iPad customized medical apps already in the Apple App Store
Developers for some of our favorite medical apps have been working at a fever pitch to have their apps utilize the extra functionality and screen space offered by the iPad. Just to be clear, all your iPhone medical apps will run on your iPad. But, some developers have made “iPad versions” of their medical apps. The following are some of our favorite medical apps that have done this conversion, and screenshots of how they have utilized the extra space and features afforded by the iPad.
Apple iPad set to launch – What do you, Medical Professionals, think?
The Apple iPad is set to launch, and right now, most of the early reviews of the product have been positive. The NY Times has a fantastic piece looking at the iPad from two angles – An everyday user verse a more technically inclined user, and both have differing opinions on the eventual success of the iPad.
But what about a medical professional or a medical student. From the reviews I’ve read so far, the screen is gorgeous and easy to read, further giving traction to the idea of medical e-books or radiology viewing on the iPad. We’ve also made clear that handwriting software for the iPad is a necessity if broad implementation in the medical field is a goal.
We’ll be getting our hands on an iPad soon so we can show you how some of our favorite iPhone medical apps perform on the new platform.
Until then, we’d like to hear from you. Will you be buying the iPad, why or why not? What additional features do you want to see on the iPad – and do you think it can help with medical education or enhance the patient physician relationship?
Five iPad Accessories for Health Care Professionals
It’s fair to say almost everyone has bought at least one accessory for their iPhone. My own collection consists of two items, a simple protective case, and protective case with a built in battery. I can’t emphasize how crucial my battery case has been, especially when I hit the 20th hour of a 30 hour on call shift and my iPhone’s native battery is about to die.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the development of iPad accessories, and how companies such as Griffin, Gelaskins, Sanho, and others are scrambling to manufacture products as fast as possible. Time is money in the accessory business, and the iPod/iPhone accessory business is big money — totaling 3.7 billion in 2009 alone.
Medical app developers have already mentioned how they will be customizing their products for the iPad. Epocrates and Macpractice are examples of two significant players who have already committed to the iPad platform — and there are more.
With that said, there’s no doubt some health care professionals will be using an iPad, whether for reading medical books or for EMR purposes. So then two key questions come to mind: What accessories do we want to see and whats already out there? The following are 5 key accessories:
Social Textbooks and the iPad – How the Medical Community Could Benefit from Dynamic E-books
It’s probably not an exaggeration to predict medical students of the next decade will not lift a physical textbook. In fact, even ownership of a discrete entity, formerly referred to as a “textbook’, may be a historical footnote. Instead, students may simply rent the chapters they need for a particular course, paying a recurring subscription fee to the publisher for the period of usage. This system could foster innovation and allow for dynamic ebooks that change with standard of care, as I’ll discuss in this post.
iPad Medical Textbooks (E-books) on the Way With Key Partnerships Announced: Why the Healthcare Community Should Be Excited
It was only a matter of time before partnerships between medical textbook publishers and the iPad development community emerged. One key partnership the Wall Street Journal just announced is between ScrollMotion (app developer) and McGraw-Hill’s Education division, with the purpose of developing e-books for the iPad. And why does this matter? Because if you’re a medical professional, you most certainly have read or own a medical text from McGraw-Hill.
McGraw-Hill is the publisher of Harrison’s Internal Medicine, Schwartz’s Principles of Surgery, the Case-File series and many more medical texts. They acquired Apple and Lange Inc in 2007, further expanding their vast medical library. Many of us know of McGraw-Hill via Access Medicine, the online portal to their large collection of medical texts that is available in almost every academic institution in the country.
Many pundits feel the iPad’s use of an LED screen verse E-ink (think Kindle) will dissuade readers from purchasing the iPad for reading purposes. The principle argument is the LED screen will cause more eye strain after prolonged use, but the medical community should embrace e-books on the iPad because we read textbooks in a different way than traditional readers.
iPad could support “Handwriting Keyboard” – A requirement for medical point of care use in health care
Ever tried using your iPhone medical apps with gloves? Doesn’t work too well. Although, if you’ve got gloves on you probably shouldn’t be using your iPhone anyways. The iPad is being touted by many, including us, as a device that could be used with patients at the point of care. Translation: Could be used in hospital rooms and procedure rooms that require you to be gloved up.
Since the iPad has a capacitive touch screen your gloves won’t work, and that plastic stylus from your old Palm PDA won’t work either. There’s a solution to this, the Pogo Sketch, featured in the picture.
The Pogo Sketch becomes an extension of your fingers and works on a capacitive touch screen. No longer making the iPad or your iPhone inoperable when you have gloves on. But what if you have to type information on the iPad or the iPhone? Since your gloved fingers won’t work, using a stylus to peck each letter on the pop up keyboard would be a huge ordeal.
To counter this, iPhone OS version 3.2, the operating system that will be running on the iPad, is rumored to have support for a “handwriting keyboard”, via Engadget.
….and, most interestingly, prototype support for a “handwriting keyboard.” Maybe we’ll see some stylus action on this thing after all.
The above revelation would be significant for the medical community, especially for health care providers who need the ability to write text efficiently with gloved hands or while standing up. I can imagine myself using this capability to type short notes or even prescriptions for patients while in a standing position in the hospital room. The alternative would be to use the external keyboard connected to the iPad, definitely more cumbersome, and this would require you to sit down and have desk space. And as most know, desk space isn’t exactly present in a hospital room.
I’m assuming Apple will not reserve this type of functionality for just the iPad, and will bring it to the iPhone and iPod Touch devices as well. If they want to make waves in healthcare IT, they would be wise to.
Apple’s iPad Will Fall Short of Transforming Hospital Medical Care, But May Have Potential With Electronic Medical Records
Now that Apple’s bombshell has finally been dropped and the world has met the iPad, its finally time to begin separating fact from fiction. Will the iPad boast the same outstanding user interface as the iPhone and iPod Touch? Yes. Will the iPad solve world hunger? Probably not. Will the iPad be a useful tool in medicine, perhaps even transform the way healthcare is delivered or electronic medical records organized? The jury is still out on that one but, admittedly, I am skeptical. Here are a few of the reasons why.
Anatomy Apps: Clemente’s, Rohen’s, and Moore’s Anatomy Flash Card Apps: Similar User Interface, but Different Images, Could Be Used for Patient Education on the iPad [App Review]
The iPad has created a great deal of buzz in the tech community. The medical and healthcare community at large are set to benefit from some of its key features, mentioned in our prior posting. One of these key features, the beautiful 1024 by 768 pixel, 9.7 inch screen, is set to change the overall user experience for medical apps that have a focus on imaging, such as anatomy applications. Although this medical app review was done using an iPod Touch, we can only imagine how much more aesthetically pleasing the iPad’s experience will be. As will be discussed later in the post, these applications are a perfect example of how the upcoming iPad could be used in the clinic setting to improve patient education.
A key thing to remember is your iPhone medical apps will run just fine on the iPad. This post will review a trio of Modality’s latest anatomy flash card apps and provide extensive pictures of the following: Clemente’s Anatomy, Rohen’s Photographic Anatomy, and Moore’s Clinical Anatomy.
Apple iPad: Promising Features For Healthcare Use and Medical Education
The iPad, Apple’s new tablet, has just been released. The following are some quick hitting features of the iPad that the medical community should be excited about, and ones we hope will be implemented in the clinic setting.
- Battery life: Up to 10 hours, we mentioned in a previous post how important battery life is if Apple wants this tablet to be used in the healthcare setting
- Beautiful screen: The 1024 by 768 screen appears to be gorgeous by many accounts. This screen could definitely be used to look at imaging. The Osirix app developers (DICOM station) are surely excited. I’d love to see how radiology films will look on this. This beautiful screen would be great for medical textbooks as well.
- Pricing: at $499, definitely much less than other health care tablets.
- External Keyboard: Along with battery life, this is one of the most critical components that will make this tablet actually useful in clinic. I can’t imagine typing on the actual iPad in the clinic. It wouldn’t be easy to do and in the clinic setting, typos can lead to critical medical mistakes.
We’ll have a more in depth post tonight with how the features the iPad touts can be used in the actual clinic setting. We’re definitely excited and our medical peers should be as well.
