Hospitals and clinics are being pressured to go more high tech. Every day doctors, nurses, and staff sift through mountains of information on patients. Everything from billing information to insurance to patient symptoms is recorded. Patients are no longer sticking with the same doctor from birth to grave like they did a hundred years ago either. Now there is a doctor from everything from your brain to your feet, and everything in between. Doctors need a way to send and receive information on patients, drugs, case studies, etc.



iPods are perfect for this. With a small, compact size and easy to use formatting, they are perfect for on the go information sharing. They can store amazing amounts of information and share it easily. They are also easy to use and do not require much training to run programs.

Pod casts are offering a way to share information. Pod casts are the live transmission of video or audio. They can cover anything the latest garage band trying to make it big to a lecture hall discussion to a forum on the latest movies at the theater. They can be implemented into use for the medical field in a variety of ways.

iPods with microphone attachments can be used to record medical notes while on the go to be transferred somewhere else later. This is particularly helpful for doctors and med students that are away from a clinic to perform their duties. Verbal notes can be played back later for review, transcription, or sharing with other doctors.

iPods are being used in some clinics as replacements for bigger, more costly equipment. For example, a doctor at UCLA, Dr. Osman Ratib, came up with a platform that allows doctors to view high-resolution radiological images that need 3D rendering to view. With help from another radiologist and programmer, Dr. Antoine Rosset, he started Osirix. One of the functions of Osirix allows radiologists to share images on iPods.

The original equipment would have cost anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000. Compare that to the price of an iPod, and clinics are saving a lot of money. Not to mention that it is also then easy to share images with other doctors - even with experts who might not be at the same clinic.

Health care officials are able to use iPods to broadcast seminars and discussion forums to doctors. This way they can exchange information on new cases, new drugs, or anything else without doctors having to even be there. Doctors can download the pod casts and listen to them later on for information that they missed.

Medical students are starting to use iPods for classes as well. Teachers can use programs to put lecture materials into a flash format, allowing them to be viewed on an iPod instead of on regular slides in the lecture hall. Students can then take this information home with them to review information later. Or, they can use the microphone feature to record lectures for later review.

Hospitals in Europe and Australia are using iPods to train new employees. They are able to use iPods for digital tours of the hospital. Or they can use iPods to train employees on new issues such as what to do in a quarantine situation or how to handle a violent patient. Doctors are favoring this method because it helps to keep all of the staff on the same page, versus relying on one staff member to train another. Having everyone take the same digital training helps eliminate in human error in the training.

Some people are concerned that the use of portable devices such as iPods could lead to leaked information or a breach of doctor and patient confidentiality. However, proponents of the idea do not feel that it is any more of a risk than maintaining files on paper or on a computer, which also can be easily duplicated.

With all of the medical applications of iPods, do not be surprised if you see one in your doctor office soon! As portable technology improves, so will its applications in the medical field.