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by FireBeyond 4926 days ago
To a degree, definitely. As someone who works in healthcare (both as a practitioner - paramedic), and whose other job is healthcare IT...

I know your example is exaggerated for effect, but there is (or should) be a difference between "general use" PCs in a hospital, and Patient Care / Management PCs (EHR, workflow automation, digital diagnostic imaging, pharmacy and the like). That in itself is a failling of healthcare IT policy.

Sure, your critical systems should all be be "certified", but even that is an area ripe for disruption - witness DrChrono in EHR, and I myself am working, or brainstorming on, better "field reporting" (i.e. 911 response laptops / tablets - most software in this field is horrific for usability, though admittedly there is pretty cool functionality, the ability to transmit 12-lead ECG to the hospital for prepping cath labs is fantastic) - definitely willing to talk to people interested in such a thing.

Edit: as an aside, I'm yet to see MRI software that wasn't driven by a Solaris backend, or even Irix, though that does demonstrate how this area works.

1 comments

I don't see a reason for general use PC in the Hospital (or any other company). Your Christmas shopping is not a business priority. :)

Philips and Siemens runs Windows. As far I remember the GE scanners were RedHat.

I do agree with the "ripe for disruption". Hopefully DrChrono, Practice Fusion and others will force some change.