With very little fanfare EPIC released Haiku. It is a free iPhone application that allows users to access their EPIC system and obtain schedules, patient lists, health summaries, test results and notes. After so many blogs about how healthcare is the “late adopter” to most technologies, along comes EPIC and does something about it.
This post is not about a plug for EPIC. It is about a plug for any company that is willing to challenge the industry to capitalize on technology that already exists in the marketplace and develop portals to their systems. Maybe we take a jaundiced eye at “portability” because so many systems tried to deliver a handheld device for physicians in the past. We had issues with synching to the device, with the weight or power consumption of the device. Now we have a company that side steps all those issues and reaches out to clinicians that are already using a multipurpose device. Free download? Why not? Just like viral videos, it is all about word of mouth. Get physicians excited about something and they will talk about it everywhere.
Getting users an application that they can use, how they want to use it and weave it into their personal workflow…that is what Healthcare Informatics is all about.
