As health professionals demand increasingly robust mobile applications and shun the traditional "Bat Belt" of multiple devices--and multiple phone numbers--the folks who run the IT shop continue to look for just the right piece of hardware that delivers technical performance as well as durability. In one camp is the iPhone, the BlackBerry and other types of smartphones. Then there are "netbooks," an increasingly popular class of mini laptops that offer nearly all the computing power of a full-fledged PC for just a few hundred dollars.
Andrew Pizzimenti, senior director for voice and data services at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, is increasingly bullish on the e-book reader, currently personified by Amazon's Kindle device. However, he still has his reservations about each class of technology as he pursues the "Holy Grail" of mobile devices (a rather ironic term to use at a Jewish hospital, but we get the gist.)
"Netbooks are still not light enough," Pizzimenti said in an interview--via teleconference, natch--with Computerworld. "Some type of Kindle device will be there in five years, whether it's the Holy Grail or not." And, of course, individual users will cling to their trusty iPhones and BlackBerries. Pizzimenti also wonders whether EMR software makers will supply applications that will run on whatever devices prove most popular.
For more on Mount Sinai's search for the perfect mobile device:
- click on this Computerworld story