Is the iPad right for iPatients?

A year ago, when I was spending much of my time in hospital, I suffered severe internet-withdrawal symptoms. I could neither browse my favourite sites, nor handle my email. I was in a quandary. Should I buy a laptop or netbook, to tide me over until I got back to my trusty iMac? That would have been expensive, and fiddly to set up internet access from my hospital bed. Or should I go for a Blackberry or an iPhone? Easy and tempting. But there were two problems – other than money. With my shaky ageing hands, keying stuff in on the tiny keyboard (Blackberry) or touch screen (iPhone) was a no-no. And my failing eyesight gave me difficulty reading the small screen. So, I did nothing, sat and suffered in my hospital bed, and waited for something more patient-friendly to turn up, before I found myself having to go into hospital again. So when Steve Jobs announced his tablet last month, himself fresh from a hospital bed, I became very excited. The iPad seemed to be the answer to a patient's prayer. It has a decent-sized visible screen (9.7 inch), which the visually impaired can enlarge material further if they want. It has a touch-screen keyboard about three times the size of the iPhone keyboard. At 1.5kg, it is about a third of the weight of a normal laptop, and therefore more comfortable on the bedtop. I know this is important, because my friends Tom and Charles, coincidentally, both spent their last few months proof-reading books. They didn't look comfortable. Pressing keys and manipulating trackerballs is not easy in bed. The iPad's touchscreen looks more bed-bound friendly. And, another important point in today's MRSA-infected hospitals: the iPad presents a smooth wipeable surface, unlike the keyboards of laptops or netbooks, where all sorts of bugs may lurk. All this assumes, of course, that the hospital allows you to use its WiFi. Now for the downside. I expected the iPad to be a large iPhone, but it isn't. It's a large iPod Touch, with no hint of a phone about it. So the patients would still have to bring their own mobiles into hospital, or use the hugely expensive hospital bedside telephones. As well as a phone, I had also expected an inbuilt camera, for two purposes. In hospital, it would be nice to see and be seen by family members when you Skype them. And when you go home and get telecare – as everybody will within five to ten years – the medic or social worker can have a better idea of your state of health by looking at you. Talking about telecare, I have been wondering whether the iPad would be the ideal platform for this. It has an easy user interface and it is designed to link to the outside world. Sadly, in its present configuration I think not. Telecare implies linking up arrays of sensors and instrumentation to the patient, but the iPad lacks connectivity, with just one USB port used for charging and connecting cameras. So, overall, I regret that the iPad mark one is not for iPatients. But I'll bet that it will evolve into an iPhonepad, with a camera and more input ports. So, wait for iPad mark two or three, which could be the fully featured telecare machine.