Viewing medical reports / reference images over the web has already been tried on the iphone, and other mobile devices. There's no reason for it not to be just as doable on the ipad.
This isn't an arguement about changing an entire infrastructure from MS to Apple just to support one device. This is about augmenting a new device into your existing infrastructure, which happens all the time.
No one says you have to build an Iphone OS app just to look at patient records or view patient images. Web access to a webserver can give you that, and all you need is IE or Safari (the company i work for does this along with other software applications for patient information). This can be easily deployed and doesn't need any additional software, since the built in browser can be used and security is handled by the Webserver itself. For a doctor to be able to see a report, and not have to be at a workstation terminal, is a big deal, especially for emergency situations. Current PC based tablets are much larger than the physical dimensions of the IPAD, and are bulky to carry around. The closest Windows powered device i can think if that is just as good as this in terms of carrying it around is the Lenovo device released at CES, where the monitor portion can be removed and used as an individual device.
In terms of wifi network security, the Iphone OS utilizes WEP, WPA, WPA2, WPA Enterprise and WPA2 Enterprise currently. Most hospitals I've worked at are using one of the two latter ones on that list. Unless there's something newer or better that is being used out there, I would imagine that most companies, healthcare or not, are using WPA2 Enterprise.
This thing is not going to replace the laptop or desktop - given it's specs, that's a given. What it does do is give you an alternative when a laptop is not a good option, and a full blown desktop is too much. If someone could load this thing up with android or Windows 7, all the better. But the idea I see behind this is not really so much another Apple device, but another gadget that you can come up with different solutions with. The OS can change at will, so things like multitask and flash are easy implementations. Whether or not its implemented is something that Apple would have to decide. There are tonnes of things that we would have like implemented in Windows 7 that didn't - this isn't any different.
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Originally Posted by taylor192
I'm a software developer in the health care industry.
The iPad will have no place in the healthcare industry. There are too many software development barriers, and few financial incentives.
Hospitals invest $Ms in software/hardware, and are slow to change cause of it. All hospitals I have worked with are heavily invested in Microsoft cause it solves their security concerns regarding workstation/care provider access.
The iPad does not have a rich enough security system that implements these features, requiring custom software which would only add to a hospitals already large investment in IT, and render their current systems useless.
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