Philips introduces wireless medical tablet powered by Intel's MCA platform

by Jeannie Choe, posted Feb 28th 2007 at 7:39PM

Philips and Intel will launch a new wireless, handheld medical device later on this year. This news arrives just as Motion Computing has unveiled a competitive product, the $2,200 C5 medical tablet PC. Both Motion's and Philips' devices are based on Intel's mobile clinical assistant platform, a system designed with the intention to improve accuracy, efficiency, and work flow for healthcare professionals. Philips' new tablet device will sport a 10.4-inch, 1,024 × 768 touchscreen as well as WiFi and a digital camera, aiming to streamline data entry and better monitor wounds and healing. The device will allegedly read both barcodes and RFID tags to prevent medication errors and confirm staff and patient ID; here's to popping antibiotics, not hormone pills, after surgery!

Read - The Register
Read - AP

Filed under: Tablet PCs, Wireless

Tags: Intel, medical, Philips

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

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Chris @ Feb 28th 2007 8:06PM

That guy is totally wearing nail varnish.

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Alber1690 @ Feb 28th 2007 8:11PM

I wonder what OS will it use?

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Christopher @ Feb 28th 2007 9:10PM

I have a relative who is an ER Doctor and Philips actually did a trial out in his hostipital before this computer was annonced and they are highly considering it.

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Andrew Hillman, Andrew Hillman @ Feb 28th 2007 10:14PM

Very nice! Looks great! The medical docs need some good stuff like this! All they need now is better software easier to use and cheaper! Medical software is so expensive!

Andrew Hillman

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Nick @ Mar 1st 2007 5:04AM

Not sure I understand the point of it.

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Matt B @ Mar 1st 2007 11:55AM

This would be great for first person shooters.

Neutral

builder1 @ Mar 3rd 2007 9:36PM

Nick,

You have to understand that the hospital environment has many constraints that make it a both unique, and difficult challenge for equipment makers.

Little things like flaky RF shielding or overpowered transmitters can make life hell for the doctors and nurses working in telemetry wards.

Care must be taken in case design to allow for quick and easy cleaning to avoid spreading of diseases via equipment. It's not like you can take your tablet pc and toss it in an autoclave!

There's also a question of form factor. Doctors work amazingly long shifts. I know i dislike carrying my current toshiba R15 for more than 30 minutes or so in tablet form. At 6 lbs, it's a bit chunky. No way I'd carry it through a 16 hour shift.

There are of course the advantages that a computerized order system brings. If implemented properly, it can offer up to date realtime tracking of patient charts, digital orders (which hopefully will cut down drastically on medical mistakes!), asset and personell tracking, and maybe even some niceties like drug interaction information, or various other physician references.

And that's before we've even covered the various things that only a tablet does even better than a standard laptop, like annontation, or image manipulation. This sort of thing could be a godsend when looking over x-ray imagery, or to zoom into cardiographs. How about some quick and dirty VISUAL dosage calculation, so the doctors don't have to struggle with math AND prescription at the same time?