How the Ipad is Changing Medicine-Apple Endorsement from Dr. Halamka At Harvard Medical With Real Time Applications and User Information

When you stop and think about endorsements I feel this one is important, why?  Dr. Halamka is not only a doctor but also a computer science expert, so there’s a lot of knowledge rolled into one person, not to mention the ability he has to talk and share his knowledge and ideas with all.  Bill Gates said last year in a talk at Berkeley that the folks who are the “hybrids” in technology are going to be the most sought after individuals and he’s right and the good doctor is right up there.  In his blog he gets out there, hands on, as well as doctors and other staff members and puts it to the test.  This is good as what we get here is “real” information beyond a “proof of concept” and that’s what we want today. 

If you go back to read what happened in 2010, you can read about the one MD at the hospital who put it to the test back April.  The link is from Dr. Halamka’s blog which he keeps updated with “cool technologies”  A few months later, he adds more input from one of the hospitalists.  A couple weeks later, a nice question and answer post on the blog about the Ipad.  A couple weeks ago, yet one more post on how to secure an Ipad and Iphone was added.  Within only a couple days they had figured out how to use Log Me In for an immediate connection and it went upwards from there.

You just don’t get this type of quality information anywhere else on the web, and I pretty much try to scour and find all the helpful information I can on the web to do this blog.  A while back when things were much simpler and still communicated on the desktop I wrote a medical records system and given that, I have a ton of appreciation for all the data work that goes into the pursuit of  medical records that can talk and communicate with each other and the amount of work and coding that enters into the picture.

I don’t write code any longer, but it certainly serves to give me a huge appreciation and understanding of what goes into the processes and thus you see a little different focus here as I’ve been on both sides a bit with working with MDs as partners.  Sometimes the way I visualized a solution and the way it was used were two different perceptions and then came the meeting of the minds.  I was not always right and so back the code drawing board for the next revision, again with input from the doctors on how it would work for them and using what skills I had to try and make it happen.  This is where the good doctor has all of this rolled into one person, phenomenal and rare, but so valuable! 

Sometimes folks in IT make it look easier than it is at times and yes we are guilty there but there’s a good reason for that and it is due to the fact that we want the best and easiest user interfaces so everyone doesn’t have to become a high powered user to participate.

You can watch the video below from Apple and about half way through you can hear the presentation from Dr. Halamka with real life experiences and his work to make it happen.  Again, this is what we want and not just proof of concept-we want the real stuff!