I am writing this posting from Orlando and the 2008 WES conference. WES is a conference that is run once yearly by Research in Motion and brings together Blackberry users and administrators from around the world to an international event attended by over 4000 people.
Most of the people here are the real technical individuals who run the systems in large organizations such as insurance companies and industry and a walk around the exhibitor hall reveals many vendors of products and services that exist in the Blackberry world to support these large companies.
So, what exactly am I doing here? The answer is quite simple. In addition to attending a small number of sessions specifically focused on healthcare including a presentation by the wireless system manager at the Cleveland Clinic who discussed what they are doing to engage their physicians in the use of wireless technologies, I am here to look at the business world in order to understand what will be of importance to healthcare in 3-5 years.
As technology advances and the devices become smaller and more powerful, what I have seen this week makes me certain that there are a number of technologies that will become very important for physicians both in the hospital setting and in private practice.
Electronic paper that uses a digital pen to capture a form that is completed and automatically uploads that form to an database and converts the handwriting to text in the process. Location technology that converts your Blackberry into a device that allows for your location to be determined e.g. if you are an anaesthetist and need to be in a specific operating room at a specific time and a multitude of paging and alerting services that could find use in the healthcare setting.
I also just attended a presentation by Ray Kurzweil who has numerous inventions to his credit. He demonstrated a device about the size of modile phone that can be used by the blind to photograph a book or document (all guided by voice cues) and then automatically converts the text in the document to speech and reads it out to the individual. This is here and now technology and can be expected in a cell phone coming to a provider close to you within the next 12-18 months. To learn more about RIM's healthcare products, click here
Healthcare has a great deal to learn from the business industry in terms of developing tools that can be used and then quickly translated into useful applications.
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