SolveYourProblem
eLearning Series
iPods & MP3 Players
Your
iPod: Service and Health Industries
When most people think of iPods, they think
of downloaded music or maybe videos. They think of fun. However,
iPods are finding their way to work in other industries as
well. One example of this is the service and health industries.
Hospitals
and clinics are being pressured to go more high tech. Every day doctors, nurses, and staff sift through mountains
of information on patients. Everything from billing information
to insurance to patient symptoms is recorded. Patients are
no longer sticking with the same doctor from birth to grave
like they did a hundred years ago either. Now there is a doctor
from everything from your brain to your feet, and everything
in between. Doctors need a way to send and receive information
on patients, drugs, case studies, etc.
iPods are perfect for this. With a small, compact size and
easy to use formatting, they are perfect for on the go information
sharing. They can store amazing amounts of information and
share it easily. They are also easy to use and do not require
much training to run programs.
Podcasts
are offering a way to share information. Podcasts are the
live transmission of video or audio. They can cover
anything the latest garage band trying to make it big to a
lecture hall discussion to a forum on the latest movies at
the theater. They can be implemented into use for the medical
field in a variety of ways.
iPods with microphone attachments can be used to record medical
notes while on the go to be transferred somewhere else later.
This is particularly helpful for doctors and med students that
are away from a clinic to perform their duties. Verbal notes
can be played back later for review, transcription, or sharing
with other doctors.
iPods are being used in some
clinics as replacements for bigger,
more costly equipment. For example, a doctor at UCLA, Dr. Osman
Ratib, came up with a platform that allows doctors to view
high-resolution radiological images that need 3D rendering
to view. With help from another radiologist and programmer,
Dr. Antoine Rosset, he started Osirix. One of the functions
of Osirix allows radiologists to share images on iPods. The
original equipment would have cost anywhere from $100,000 to
$200,000. Compare that to the price of an iPod, and clinics
are saving a lot of money. Not to mention that it is also then
easy to share images with other doctors – even with experts
who might not be at the same clinic.
Health care officials are able to use iPods to broadcast
seminars and discussion forums to doctors. This way they can exchange
information on new cases, new drugs, or anything else without
doctors having to even be there. Doctors can download the pod
casts and listen to them later on for information that they
missed.
Medical
students are starting to use iPods for classes as
well. Teachers can use programs to put lecture materials into
a flash format, allowing them to be viewed on an iPod instead
of on regular slides in the lecture hall. Students can then
take this information home with them to review information
later. Or, they can use the microphone feature to record lectures
for later review.
Hospitals in Europe and Australia are using iPods to train
new employees. They are able to use iPods for digital tours
of the hospital. Or they can use iPods to train employees on
new issues such as what to do in a quarantine situation or
how to handle a violent patient. Doctors are favoring this
method because it helps to keep all of the staff on the same
page, versus relying on one staff member to train another.
Having everyone take the same digital training helps eliminate
in human error in the training.
Some people are concerned that the use of portable devices
such as iPods could lead to leaked information or a breach
of doctor and patient confidentiality. However, proponents
of the idea do not feel that it is any more of a risk than
maintaining files on paper or on a computer, which also can
be easily duplicated.
With all of the medical applications of iPods, do not be surprised
if you see one in your doctor office soon! As portable technology
improves, so will its applications in the medical field. # # # # #
SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
> Home > iPod
& MP3 Player Articles: Main Page |
