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Mickey Segal: Where Is The Love For Tablet PCs?

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MIckey Segal is a great friend of GBM and has been writing and using Tablet PCs from the get go. As the founder of SimulConsult, which makes decision-support software to assist with medical diagnosis, Mickey’s stump speech about Tablet PCs has been about mobility and what it can offer health care professionals. You might remember MIckey’s search for the perfect pocket to carry the perfect device in while out and about. In this article Mickey is revisiting some of the early predictions that were made about Tablet PCs and how they are used in the niche he works in. I think he nails the condundrum that is Tablet PCs really well.

When tablet computers were unveiled six years ago, it was predicted that they would be widely adopted in medicine. How have such predictions held up? It is hard to tell. Observing what happened is not the uncertainty; the issue is that technology has changed so much that it’s hard to fi gure out what the original predictions actually meant. For those who imagined doctors talking with patients while writing on notebook-size slate tablets resting on their laps, their predictions have fallen short. Part of the reason is that computerization has advanced more slowly in medicine than in other industries.   Another factor is that many of the doctors who use computers do so by sitting at a desk and typing on a keyboard and looking at a screen instead of looking at the patient.

Check out the entire article here.

Note the Mickey wrote the article using a Motion Computing LS800 while on a plane, “because it is easier to use a slate while away from a desk.”

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Kevin Purcell

    10/18/2008 at 12:11 pm

    I think think primary reason for tablets not being adopted is price. My HP tx2500 is one of the cheapest around. But without it being a convertible it would be about $400 less. That’s alot of money since the real value of the interface hasn’t been sold well.

  2. Stuart

    10/18/2008 at 3:04 pm

    I don’t see any mention of the MCA medical devices by Phillips, Motion Computing and Panasonic that will be implemented in healthcare. Now that the hardware is there the really important part is the software that needs to be written to utilize it.

  3. Virtuous

    10/20/2008 at 12:17 am

    I’d rather type then handwrite. I can type faster than I can write. After a few minutes writing with a pen or stylus my hand will cramp. Tablets need an interface that isn’t tacked on like it is in Windows. Price isn’t the only barrier to wider adoption.

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