iPad gets early thumbs-up

Lines of buyers, a burgeoning bunch of app announcements...the iPad has arrived, alright. Judging from a recent discussion on the AMDIS listserv board, it’s already in your facility and undergoing assessment by your peers. Survey respondents in CMIO's Web poll last month were evenly split with regard to their iPad purchase plans, but that was before Apple’s gadget hit the streets. Now that it’s here, the level of early interest among health IT professionals is high. 

Here are some of the pros and cons from an April 8 conversation among early adopters.  

Pros:
Image quality: One physician described images on the iPad as "stunning," and another said it would encourage bedside use of images to help with diagnosis and patient education. Another said the quality of x-ray images would make it an easy way to share these images with patients’ families.

Many cited the iPad’s fast access to information: “Makes rounds information sharing easy with access to labs, etc…looking forward to CPOE for 'orders on the go' from bedside.”

Another post lauded the "superb" Wi-fi speed of full-screen images. And a number of readers reported that the iPad’s battery life was longer than expected.

Cons:
The iPad doesn’t fit into a standard white coat pocket, said several users. One suggested creating an "iCoat" to accommodate the device in style.

The iPad’s cool factor might make it a tempting target for theft in hospital or clinic environments.

Keeping those images as sharp as possible--that is, keeping the screen clean during patient encounters--will be an issue.

Other comments:
“We are really surprised by how many clinicians have bought one already.”

Will task-specific configurations—say, a stripped-down set of EMR functions for inputting vital signs in an ambulatory setting—be the next step? And speaking of screen real estate, some readers called for preventing vendors from filling iPad apps with advertising because screen space is too valuable to share with ads.

With or without iPads, the Department of Veterans Affairs spends proportionately more on IT than the private healthcare sector spends, but it achieves higher levels of IT adoption and quality of care compared with the private sector, according to researchers from the Center for IT Leadership in Charlestown, Mass.

The study, which appears in the April edition of HealthAffairs, estimates the potential value of the VA’s health IT investments to be approximately $3.09 billion in cumulative benefits net of investment costs. The VistA investments, consisting of EHRs, radiological imaging, and laboratory and medication ordering and administration, are associated with significant reductions in unnecessary and redundant care, process efficiencies and improvements in care, according to the study.

This is good corroboration for those who believe strategically deployed technology improves healthcare. 

Mary Stevens, editor
mstevens@trimedmedia.com