If touch screens are so hot, what are small and midsize companies actually using them for? It can't all be restaurant workers and customer-facing kiosks, can it? We check out a new health care application, try to figure out uses for touch-screen laptops, and wonder if new software development programs will help.
Now that Windows 7 includes native support for touch screens, hardware vendors are busy rolling out touch-screen-capable machines and talking up their transformative power.
But for all the hype, there's been precious little information about real businesses using them for real applications -- outside of restaurant/hospitality workers, customer-facing signage, kiosks, and the like. Surprisingly, even the makers of touch-screen computers don't have a good handle on how their products are being employed in the real world.
So I was intrigued to learn about a touch application actually in use in a small medical office. TouchChart is a touch-screen-powered paperless-medical-records application optimized for use in healthcare practices ranging from small private clinics to large hospitals. Created by Aquarius Imaging from an earlier Tablet-powered application, TouchChart lets doctors and nurses use an touch interface to upload, store, and view patients' medical records, including written files, videos, x-rays, sonograms, voice notes, and digital images.
TouchChart incorporates multimedia as well as charts.
Aquarius' Mark Wright says the app began life some 5 years ago when the company developed a document scanning and management app for a St. Louis oncologist. Dr. William Morris was looking to replicate the paper charts he was used to using. But tablet/stylus computing never really panned out, and so for the past few years the app has been in regular use, but with standard mouse input.
But when Aquarius folks saw HP's TouchSmart PC in a Best Buy one day, they decided it would be perfect for medical applications. Working with HP, they skinned the existing app to make it more "touch-friendly" and optimized it for the HP TouchSmart's 22-inch screen, with enlarged buttons. When they showed it to Dr. Morris, Wright says, he was "blown away."
The key is simplicity and a precise replication of the familiar paper charts, all the way down to the colored tabs. "This made learning to retrieve the charts simple for all our doctors and staff," according to Darlene Boylan R.N., the Practice Manager at St. Louis Oncology. "This process allows the doctor to see patients in the style they always have. If they need patient past history, lab, or radiology information, it is only a few clicks away with TouchChart. The doctors also like that they can access the patient charts from home."
Paper charts are replicated complete with colored tabs.
Technology has scared away a lot of these physicians," Wright says, "especially the older ones that control the money." But "this really breaks it down to, if you can use an ATM, you can go get patient records," he says. "Like an ATM or giant iPod, it becomes so simple that you don't have that aversion" to changing to an electronic system.
The system has been in use at St. Louis Oncology for a couple months, with TouchSmart PCs in every exam room and the offices for nurses and support staff.
This video shows how the system works.
Despite the initial success of TouchChart, Wright doesn't see touch screens replacing current data entry options for everyday uses. But it's "great for average knowledge workers doing different things" that they may not use all the time. "It's visual," he says, so it's easier to train users to be productive faster. "The mouse is 2-D," he explains, "touch is 3-D." And the success of the "iPhone is putting an exclamation point" on the potential of touch screens.
Next Page: How Would You Use A Touch-Screen Laptop?
