Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad, iPad, iDevice Apps
When the iPad came out, two of the criticisms were “I don’t know what it’s for” and “it’ll never be useful in the workplace.” But the iPad’s big screen and touch interface make it useful for any number of professions, and one where it’s proving popular is the medical profession. PDA’s have long been popular with healthcare providers (who need to have quick access to large amounts of data), and the iPad is no exception.
Software Advice has a writeup from Austin Merritt exploring the need for iPad software in the medical field. One of their surveys indicates that 35% of healthcare providers are “very likely” to purchase a tablet computer, but only two Electronic Health Record (EHR) apps were written specifically for the iPad: Nimble and Dr. Chrono.
So where are the 300+ other EHR software companies? They have iPad apps ?in the works,? but not ready yet. This really comes as no surprise. The medical software industry is notoriously slow to adopt new technologies. Have you ever seen your doctor?s office running a system that looks like it is from the 80s? We hear from these practices every day. Plenty of software vendors are still selling outdated, DOS-based systems with Windows interfaces (we will withhold names to protect the innocent).
And yet, as the article points out, there are over 10,000 medical apps in the App Store and a number of startups are planning more full-featured apps to overtake larger companies that are slower to move on this new area of technology.
The big issue is that as the tablet market grows to include more Android devices, how to maintain cross-platform compatibility… or maybe they won’t. Perhaps Apple, which currently has 87% of the market, will maintain their early lead with medical technology by virtue of being there first. Or will Android get a larger market share and capture the attention of the technology makers rather than users?
Read [Software Advice: The Medical Blog]
Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »
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