As the debut of the iPad fast approaches, speculation about it is reaching a fevered pitch. Scanning the thousands of articles written about the iPad’s potential, one may walk away thinking that Steve Jobs has just cured cancer, ended global warming, and established peace in the Middle East. Some people are even calling Apple’s latest creation the “Jesus tablet.” While the iPad probably falls somewhere short of some of those lofty projections, it has already done what Apple seems to do best – transformed the way we look at an existing market, in this case mobile computing and the tablet. We’ve talked previously about how the iPhone paved the way for the iPad in healthcare. Again, Apple’s entry into this market has signaled a huge shift in the way users will interact with the tablet and, through it, their environment.  This new user interface has a great deal of potential to change the way physicians deliver care. But perhaps more importantly, it could also have profound impacts on the way patients experience healthcare.

Innovative therapies

Over the past decade, there have been a number of examples of novel technologies being used either therapeutically for sick patients or in preventative care. For example, there have been numerous trials, with more success in the pediatric population, that use text messaging to remind patients to take their medications. When the iPhone transformed the user interface for the smartphone, therapies centered on that platform also emerged – autism and major depression are two conditions with iPhone apps that are therapeutic in nature. Enter the iPad. With a more advanced touchscreen, a high-quality webcam, and perhaps even 3d graphics, the possibilities become far more rich.

Take children with cancer – these kids can be hospitalized for weeks at a time and, due to the chemotherapy, stuck largely in isolation for most of that time. An app that utilizes the webcam to connect kids while playing a fun and interactive game together would provide a far richer interaction than a networked gaming console. Or consider the numerous elderly patients who succumb to delirium while in the hospital largely because, on top of being sick, life in the hospital, void of sunlight and normal sleep-wake patterns, gets so disorienting. Consider an app that, much like the mentally challenging games on the Nintendo DS, helps older patients stay a little more active during the day and perhaps ward of delirium. Will the iPad cure cancer or, for that matter, anything? No. But what it will do is provide some interesting and creative adjuncts to standard therapy that could make the patient’s quality of life a little better.

Improved patient-provider communication

In the ever growing iPhone app store, educational apps are among the most numerous. One of the biggest reasons why is because the interface allows user to interact with the material in a number of different ways. Take the Blausen Human Atlas or Pocket Heart – both of these apps allow the user to interact with anatomy in an incredibly rich way. With much more powerful graphics capabilities, these kinds of apps can certainly be taken to another level.

Consider a patient going into surgery. Today, explanation of the surgery is restricted to some form of charades by the surgeon and 2d radiology images. An app that allows 3d reconstructions of a patient’s scans to be pulled onto the iPad and manipulated would allow for a far better explanation, improving patient-physician communication. Or how about the diabetic patients or the heart failure patients? These poor folks are often subjected to hours of mind-numbing “educational” videos in the hospital – iPad apps could bring an element of interactivity that allows patients to engage with material that is critical to their health. Finally, consider the stroke patient. There are rumors that the iPad’s camera will be sufficiently sensitive to allow facial recognition. Perhaps then it could also be used to detect facial, or for that matter limb and trunk, motion with apps designed for post-stroke rehabilitation therapy. In a “game” format, individual goals outside of professional physical therapy could help empower the patient as they fight to recover.

The key opportunity that the iPad offers here is not just another platform to convey information, but a way to make it fun and engaging. While the iPad won’t replace a good physician taking the time to talk to a patient, it could certainly augment the patient-provider relationship in a fun and engaging way.

These are just a few ways that the iPad could transform the way a patient understands their illness and interacts with their healthcare providers. Among the most elusive goals in medicine is helping patients understand complex diseases and empower them to manage these conditions. Nothing will ever replace a strong patient-provider relationship, a personal support network, and evidence-based therapies based on a thorough scientific foundation. But the iPad could herald the introduction of innovative adjuncts that help patients take control of their own health and improve their quality of life.

The rumor mill keeps on churning with the soon to be released Apple Tablet, and now the medical community is supposedly involved.  According to an article by VentureBeat, Apple Reps have been talking to the Los Angeles Cedars – Sinai Medical Center about the potential of an Apple Tablet for medical professionals.

The article goes on to mention one of the reasons why tablets haven’t been universally embraced by medical professionals:

We’ve been told for years that medical professionals were the guaranteed-to-succeed market for tablets. Bill Gates raved about his in 2006. But tablets like the Dell Latitude XT2 XFR, pictured above, have stiffed again and again, in part because of their ungainly laptop-with-a-backwards-facing-display design.

I’ve mentioned in a previous post why the Apple Table could be a huge success in the medical industry, and it’s not because of form factor.  I can’t emphasize this enough.  There is this idea in the tech community that bulky tablets are why you don’t see medical providers using tablets for electronic medical records.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  In my previous post I talk about how the User Interface of potential Electronic Medical Records in a native Operating System made by Apple would be one of the keys to success.

A nice looking tablet PC for medical professionals is already available.  The Motion C5 is viewed as a great Tablet for medical professionals, it’s a clipboard like computer that has an RFID reader, photo capability, and other nice features.  Basically, its a slim tablet with a nice form factor.

One of the largest barriers holding back medical tablet PC’s are the hundreds of iterations of Electronic Medical Records(EMR) that are too complicated and not easy to use.  The User Interface and workflow on the EMR software is certainly functional, but not fun to use.  One would think an EMR program that has the Apple touch would be significantly more aesthetically pleasing, easy to use, and functional at the same time.  All qualities Apple is famous for.

I doubt Apple is going to be designing these EMR programs, but at the same time, we’ve seen how controlling Apple is about software running on its devices (think App Store).  I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple leveraged their hardware to force EMR companies to design better software in tune with Apple’s core principals. Surprisingly, Apple’s desire for control might actually help with the progression of electronic medical records. In the upcoming weeks this is a topic we’ll discuss in detail to a greater length.

Rumors of an Apple tablet have been all over the place during the past few weeks. Although Apple is notorious for pulling off clandestine product launches, the consensus appears to be that Apple will launch a tablet early next year. With the $19 billion dollars from the stimulus package set aside exclusively for electronic medical records, it would make business sense for Apple to venture into making tablets that can be used for electronic medical records. So then hypothetically, if we get an Apple tablet in 2010, will it really be used by the healthcare world? Everyone seems to be talking about how great an Apple tablet would be for the medical community, but few are talking about if it would actually be used.

In almost every keynote related to the iPhone, Apple has embraced the medical community and set aside time to show how its platform can be used in healthcare. The same can’t be said for other mobile technologies, such as Windows Mobile and the current reincarnation of Palm. Palm was a leader in portable medical technology and their old PDA’s continue to be used by healthcare providers. Their fall in the medical tech world can largely be attributed to their history of lackluster phones. The current Palm-Pre, a beautiful device, leaves much to be desired from when it comes to medical technology. There was a recent study stating six out of ten doctors prefer iPhones. Although this wasn’t a super-scientific survey, we’ve all seen a huge increase in the doctors and providers using the iPhone in the clinic.

This preference for the iPhone is largely due to it’s beautiful UI and ease of use. I’ve had plenty of colleagues pick up my iPhone and intuitively use the medical applications I have. Quite literally, the iPhone makes the medical technology experience fun again. This experience isn’t exclusive to the iPhone, but also with the iPod Touch. Both devices are great to hold and look at, but it’s not the hardware that makes the device exciting, it’s the software. This experience gives the iPhone a great brand name in the medical community, even to those who don’t use the phone.

I think the brand name and the fun experience the current iPhone operating system provides will be the key to the tablet’s success. Using electronic medical records definitely saves me time, but the different platforms I’ve used can be cumbersome and sometimes I feel like I’m using a program developed for Windows 3.0. Overall, it’s an efficient experience, but not a fun one. Can you imagine selling a electronic medical record to a physician who has exclusively used Windows operating systems? If they don’t like change, as many physicians are notorious for, this would be a difficult task. In the medical community the iPhone is associated with fun and innovation, two things that will get physicians like the one I mentioned excited about change. The iPhone’s Operating System has bridged the gap between PC and Apple, and it’s going to be interesting to see how the tablet will be used once the stimulus money really gets rolling in 2010. I’ll venture to guess the tablet will actually help with the implementation of electronic medical records because of the excitement it’ll bring.