What’s all the excitement? I don’t recall any brouhaha when doctors started toting laptops. Last time I was in an ER, pretty much every physician had a laptop. Some were using them in tablet mode and others just used the traditional open the lid and type method.
Compared to anything with a keyboard, an iPad should be a cinch to clean.
And how often do they autoclave the doctors and nurses themselves?
That’s true. My doctor is part of a major medical practice comprising hundreds of doctors of many specialties. Every single examining room has a PC, all networked together, so that the patient’s complete history can be accessed from any room. All doctor’s notes, prescriptions, etc., go into the computer files.
Now consider the amount of time those workstations spend un-attended? I’m sure they’re hardened…aren’t they?
Contrast that with a tablet device small and light enough that it just stays with the Doctor.
Hell, I knew someone who did some development work on the Newton for hospitals.
They can’t? I have to go, uh, hide some. . . stuff.
You’re not going to be able to hide the smell.
As long as I keep it sterile, there won’t be a smell.
Autoclaved, hell. I’d be happy if they washed their hands more often. (Yes, yes, I know there are signs and Purell everywhere. But I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals in the last few months with nothing to do, just observing, and most of the staff *still *isn’t washing between each patient. And the doctors are way worse than the nurses.)
I guess it depends on how much you trust password procedures. It’s never been the case in my experience that the doctor or nurse did not log out before leaving the room. Even I have a hard time looking at my own file because the computer is logged in so briefly.
But granted, if everybody had tablet devices and carried them on their person, it would be even more secure.
Problem:
iPads and iPhones are not HIPAA compliant. My wife really, really wishes they were. She wants to use iPad for remote emails instead of her Blackberry.
My husband works in the medical field (not a dr.) and has used computers for patient entry for years. His last job was in a nursing home (SNF) and they carried portable devices for entering patient information and treatment records. Each person in his department had their own that was networked to the desktops in the their department office.
At his current job in a private practice he has a laptop for the same purpose.
It’s interesting that iPads are not considered HIPPA compliant when these other devices are. (and believe me if they aren’t HIPPA compliant they would not have been used by my husband’s employers.)
Granted he doesn’t have to worry as much about sterilization as a hospital would but it’s still a concern.
Ask me in a few moniths, I’ll be studying HIPAA for my next job, I suspect:
iPad checking your email from home: Not HIPAA compliant
iPad using a WPA2/Radius network connection to view an intranet site using https://, probably demonstrably HIPAA compliant. I suspect that depends on the results of an audit.
There is nothing about the iPad that makes in inherently not HIPAA compliant. Indeed, there is software specifically designed for HIPAA compliant use. It’s called Nimble. I don’t know, there may be others as well.
http://hipaanews.net/archives/2010/10/01/nimble-for-the-ipad-–-hipaa-compliant-answer-for-docs-on-the-go/
ETA: Yep. meridianEMR is another. http://www.meridianemr.com/
All I know is that my wife’s legal department will not approve iPhones and iPads due to non-compliance.
Since this is second-hand knowledge, I could be mistaken.
Some IT departments are brain-dead and part of their basic model for compliance is that the device has all of the current Windows service packs and patches. As that’s impossible on an iDevice, your iDevice is by definition not going to be compliant. :rolleyes:
I’m sure you’re not mistaken. But I know from our lawyers they generally start all conversations with “No…”
Doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way. There was a time when folks didn’t want them there Pee Cee’s in the workplace, the mainframe worked Just Fine.