EMR and EHR has been getting a ton of traffic related to my posts on the iPad EMR. It’s a really interesting discussion that I think people that love technology and EMR will enjoy. I have no doubt that the interface that the iPad is helping to promote and develop is going to have a major impact on healthcare. Not that everyone will have an iPad in healthcare, but that the technology behind it will be copied and we’ll see lots of interesting documentation methods for EMR software.

Dr. Larry Nathanson, MD from BIDMC seems to disagree with me in his writeup about his experience using the iPad in an Emergency Room. However, what I found most interesting about his writeup is his comments about the challenges of the iPad.

The first was how well it will hold up in a clinical environment. The iPad doesn’t seem to be the most rugged device and clinics like to abuse devices (from my experience). The second was the challenge that plagues all tablets: difficulty entering strong passwords. between the numbers, symbols and mixed case, it’s harder to enter these passwords on a device like the iPad. Is biometrics the solution to that?

What do you all think about the iPad and EMR? Will we see an iPad only EMR develop into a real power player in the industry?