4. Tablets In The Hospital Ward

Even Thomas Schippert, vice president of sales and marketing for Paceblade Europe, sees exclusively professional uses for the tablet PC. Schippert sees sales opportunities particularly where questionnaires or forms need to be filled out, in field sales and the medical field. "Until now, doctors often had a PC in the examination room. Now, the most they need is one PC and a pen/ tablet PC." But practical uses for the pen/ tablet PC can be seen even in hospitals. Since October of last year, tablet PCs have been under evaluation at a hospital with 1850 beds. Dr. Schlimpert, the project supervisor, gives the main reasons for this choice, "Since a picture archiving and communication system was launched, we no longer have conventional X-ray film. That's why we need devices that allow us to look at digital X-rays."

The clinic also tried using notebooks or webpads. But the laptops were rated as too awkward by doctors and nurses. "Only a tablet PC with W-LAN met all our needs," explains Schlimpert. Extremely important for Schlimpert are the wireless connection and good image quality with X-rays. Since all programs that are important for the clinic, like the Power Chart electronic medical chart filing system or the SAP IS-H patient information system, run on tablet PCs, the clinic is planning to purchase about 100 machines.

Michael Broschart, product manager for tablet PCs at HP, has his eye on other target groups: people who frequently give presentations or attend a lot of meetings, like managers or consultants. These users must be able to take notes quickly, ideally entering them directly into the presentation, just as with a piece of paper. "Our tablet PCs are particularly useful when combined with a wireless beamer. A tablet PC replaces the flip chart and offers simple options for corrections, without a lot of erasing," says Broschart. One practical side effect is the additional option of using the search functions for handwritten notes.