Hospital sees return on Apple iPad investment in 9 days - report

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  • Reply 21 of 34


    You're Wrong.  Of course they would have to convert it to keynote first (simply opening it on a Mac with Keynote and then saving it will do that).  But then it can easily be accessed on the iPad.

  • Reply 22 of 34

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by VirgaHyatt View Post


    You're Wrong.  Of course they would have to convert it to keynote first (simply opening it on a Mac with Keynote and then saving it will do that).  But then it can easily be accessed on the iPad.



    Who's wrong? If you were responding to macinthe408 you need to realize that their post was being sarcastic...

  • Reply 23 of 34
    cowhidecowhide Posts: 49member
    In related news 2 bogus post in AI's comments were found to be made up stories about the iPad in hospitals. One About Androids and the other about a Microsoft commercial.
    No links to the stories make them suspect.
  • Reply 24 of 34
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Applelunatic View Post

    And what exactly would this anonymous person gain by lying about it? It's not as if themselves or their hospital are going to gain fame and fortune over this since their identity was kept anonymous. So unless you're positing some sort of Apple shilling conspiracy, I don't see why we should believe what this person is saying isn't true.

     

    My post was in no way meant as a suggestion of Apple influencing the trial or even for/against iPads or any other particular technology. It was more a commentary on how cost/benefit for IT projects are often determined. Many times there is more fantasy than reality (I speak from experience)



    It goes something like this... You spend $2 million on a project to deploy electronic data system, fully supported by a detailed cost/benefit analysis. There is almost never a post-deployment analysis to verify the accuracy of that initial cost/benefit argument. If for some reason the project never realizes the benefit projected, it's either never known or chaulked up as a less-than-successful project.



    Along comes project #2. I can buy a bunch of iPads for $500 each which can access the system I already have in place and actually make it useful. If that saves my staff 10 hours in the first two weeks the iPad has just paid for itself, and project #2 is wildly succesful.



    Even if project #1 did meet it's cost/benefit goals, the point is that the iPad project, by itself, probably wouldn't have solved anything. You had to first spend that $2 million, and that probably wasn't considered when the cost/benefit of project #2 was determined. And who's to say that a $200/PC in each exam room wouldn't have accomplished the same result and paid for itself in 4 days! (Just making up an example because, since this guy chose to remain anonymous, we don't know the details behind this particular trial.)



    Right now there is a bit of controversy amongst members of the Air Force which basically boils down to, "why do the pilots get iPads and we doctors don't?". Some of that is simply jealously, everyone wants an iPad thinking it will solve all their problems. But it boils down to the cost/benefit analysis. Weight can be translated into fuel savings which can translate into hard dollars saved. But in the medical environment, unless you've first invested millions in the back-end systems, an iPad or any other other client device by itself will solve nothing.
  • Reply 25 of 34

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cowhide View Post



    In related news 2 bogus post in AI's comments were found to be made up stories about the iPad in hospitals. One About Androids and the other about a Microsoft commercial.

    No links to the stories make them suspect.


    Neither of those two posts were being serious. Seriously, you people need to fix your sarcasm detectors.

  • Reply 26 of 34
    cbstevekcbstevek Posts: 3member
    So bascally a fraction of their costs are high enough to offset the cost of an iPad in 9 days. Seems like their 'cost of doing business' is *way* out of control.
  • Reply 27 of 34
    sailorpaulsailorpaul Posts: 322member
    We use the iPad in our medical practice, especially during house calls to patients. As long as the EHR app runs native on the iPad, then performance is very good even on a 3G cellular link.

    A couple of vendors tried to talk us into EHR apps that used Citrix emulation -- those were utter failures out at the patient locations. Ones that used emulation were barely usable even with a 40mb/sec FiOS connection from our main location.

    All in all we are very happy with the native EHR app after about 2 years. The practice moved over 100% to that solution a year and a half ago. We also ONLY allow the staff to access the EHR from iPad or iPhone devices. They either have iOS devices when hired or we will help fund that purchase.

    We do eRx, eLabs, and all charting in the native app. It includes custom medical speech-to-text for dictation directly on the iPad.
  • Reply 28 of 34
    auburnjauburnj Posts: 8member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Robin Huber View Post



    When are EHRs going to get to the consumer level, or at least widely adopted there? The fact that I have to fill out the same clipboard-mounted medical history every time I visit a new doctor (or often the same doctor) is ridiculous.


    This is why i LOVE Kaiser. Everything is on EHR! And I can access it from home.  They also provide my records on a USB thumb drive that's on my key chain.

  • Reply 29 of 34
    kdarlingkdarling Posts: 1,640member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Either way, a nine day investment return is absolutely insane. This really ought to spur every hospital in the country into buying iPads.



     


    Actually, if you think about it, nine days is a pretty slow return for a $400 investment at a hospital, a place where they charge patients $10 for each styrofoam cup and ice bucket. 


     


    Nine days is only a savings of $1.85 an hour.  Barely a blip on overall hourly user cost.  Wonder if they're factoring in hiring someone to maintain hospital apps, too.  Or are they just using it as a web tablet? 


     


    Still, saving a little here, saving a little there, never hurts.  


     


    Next up: removing free coffee from the nurse's station!  Now THAT will save TONS  :)

  • Reply 30 of 34
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


     


    Oh boy… I have a… political question. Would it have paid for itself this quickly were this not the case? Or was the potential loss of funding not taken into account?


     


    Either way, a nine day investment return is absolutely insane. This really ought to spur every hospital in the country into buying iPads.



    Kdarling sort of mentioned what I was going to say. If the initial implementation doesn't provide a good day to day workflow, they may have to account for some amount of custom software development and maintenance costs in addition to what was mentioned or at the very least licensing of third party software that meets the desired requirements. It doesn't mean the use of ipads couldn't still be a net benefit. It's just a different set of numbers.


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post


    In related news, hospitals that have opted for Android tablets reports that after a full two years, they have still not recouped their investment on the Android tablets, and news has recently leaked that each Android tablet has actually cost each hospital $394,255, due to lawsuits stemming from various patient deaths, caused by malware and viruses, in which patient records became randomly shuffled and mixed up on the Android tablets. There was a rogue ER nurse that was rooting the tablets and downloading new OS builds each night, until that fateful night when everything went wrong.


     


    A patient who was admitted for a left broken ankle ended up getting open heart surgery, which ended up being fatal and another patient who was suffering from a case of the flu ended up with a missing penis after mistakingly undergoing a sex change operation. The patient with the missing penis, once an avid Fandroid, has now completely seen the error and folly of their cheapskate ways, and is an avid and happy Apple user today. 



    Any company deploying either iPads or Android tablets is going to stick to stable builds that are well tested prior to deployment. That is just normal IT behavior. You don't have to turn it into Apple fan fiction to make your point.

  • Reply 31 of 34
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,440moderator
    kdarling wrote: »
    Actually, if you think about it, nine days is a pretty slow return for a $400 investment at a hospital, a place where they charge patients $10 for each styrofoam cup and ice bucket.

    Here's one with Android tablets:

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4vtQYECUyrwJ:https://www.vodafone.co.uk/cs/groups/public/documents/webcontent/vftst162939.pdf

    "Using secure Android tablet devices, workers are now able to access schedules, confirm appointments and conduct patient assessments remotely.

    The roll out of 400 Samsung Galaxy Tab 7-Plus tablets has already begun with another 500 planned in the second phase.

    Morris says tablets will help the Trust meet its business and healthcare objectives, and expects a Return on Investment within 12-18 months"

    Pffft, 12-18 months, that's a slow return on investment. Must be factoring in the effects of losing patient data due to malware and being sued. Of course unless we actually see a cost breakdown, we just have to assume they know their costs better than people who prefer one brand of tablet over another.
  • Reply 32 of 34
    kdarlingkdarling Posts: 1,640member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post



    Here's one with Android tablets:


     


    Hey, thanks.  Pretty cool article.  Of course, it's a different situation:


     


    That Android tablet project is about cellular enabled tablets given to mobile community health workers to use outside of a hospital.


     


    It also points out how ROI can have different contexts.


     


    In the Android article, they talk about being able to save 10 minutes for each home visit by not having to boot a laptop.  They additionally save another hour a day by not having to come into an office to check emails, which means they can visit another couple of people each day.  


     


    Those are huge time savings in comparison to the couple of minutes per hour that the iPad case was about, and yet they still came out with a year for ROI.   Clearly they're including the entire infrastructure of the project, not just the price of the tablets.

  • Reply 33 of 34
    Nothing to do with the iPad or android. Poor software and incompatibility with workflow either supports the business or doesn't.
  • Reply 34 of 34
    inklinginkling Posts: 773member
    Having worked in a hospital, I can easily imagine how, with a well-designed UI and the right apps, a tunic-pocket sized iPad mini could be a marvelous work organizer and time saver. For remembering to-dos back in that technological stone age, I had to depend on a wind-up pocket alarm.

    Linked to equipment, an iPad could be even better. The nurses I worked with depended on their IV pumps to beep when they ran out of fluid. A well-designed system could link to those pumps and display the time left on each infusion, as well as beeping a nurse a couple of minutes before one runs out.

    --Michael W. Perry, author of Hospital Gowns and Other Embarrassments
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