We already heard rumors about Apple entering the point of sale (POS) arena, but now there are whispers that Apple is looking to break into the health care vertical. With what? Why, none other than their alleged tablet, of course. Think it’s far-fetched? Don’t be too surprised. Read on for the details.
9to5Mac offers some interesting conjecture based on this writeup from TinyComb Tech News. The brass tax? Apparently, Apple has spent the last 6 weeks at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles trying to get doctors on board with a new product. Mum’s the word, but whispers and echoes say it’s the Tablet. It’s an interesting prospect, and Jason Wilk, author of the TinyComb article, seems nearly convinced. Would Apple look to make their first major step into the health care vertical with this device, instead of directly pushing it out to the consumer? It’s a great question, but one that 9to5Mac doesn’t think is a likely “yes.”
Opportunities for VARs?
Arguably, there’s a lot of room for the Apple Tablet in the health care vertical. Even if the consumer gets first dibs, the tablet can easily leak over to the working world. 9to5Mac brings up an interesting point: a sick Steve Jobs last year may have seen so much inefficient use of computer hardware at the hospital he was in, a bit of genius was sparked within him and the Health Tablet became a very real idea. They put it coyly:
Can you imagine Jobs in the hospital seeing people running around with an unreliable Windows Vista tablet. “So let me get this straight. You pay $3000/apiece for that and there are 10,000 employees here and there are thousands of hospitals like this all over the world? And it runs Windows?”
The iPhone has proven itself to be a pretty useful work horse as it is, let alone the medical / imaging review capabilities and extensive fully-illustrated anatomy ‘book’ applications. We shouldn’t forget that a few blood pressure and blood glucose attachments were also demoed for the iPhone.
On a lighter note, one would imagine a bored Jobs might think of some interesting refinements for a tablet if he happened to have one to play with while bed ridden. Some of us hope there will be some awesomely fun an interactive games. We’ll just have to wait and see, and we’ll know soon enough. Today, January 13 marks only two weeks away from the alleged January 27 announcement of the device.
This has huge potential to shake up channel strategy. VARs, if the rumor is shown to be true, how fast do you think your verticals will want to snatch up the device?
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They already have the killer app. Osirix-viewer is VERY popular amongst docs as a radiology viewer. But tablets are a much overvaunted development in healthcare. In reality, the number of application that present low hanging fruit are very limited. And anything that requires process reengineering is a tough call. It isn’t the fact that tablets have been Windows so far that is the reason they havnt had much of an impact.
And anyone who thinks a 10,000 employee hospital. Will have more than 3-400 units is in cloud cuckoo land.
It would be an interesting move for us in HIT but nothing groundshaking
Prometheus,
I think you’ve got a valid point, however when you say “It isn’t the fact that tablets have been Windows so far is the reason they haven’t had much of an impact” — is exactly why I feel they haven’t had an impact.
I think the argument could be made that the reason the smartphone didn’t really take off until the iPhone / Blackberry came around could be an argument, since Windows CE / Mobile was pretty clunky. Both device and software.
Also, I wouldn’t ever underestimate Apple. If they decided to put full faith and effort into developing medical applications, I’d believe they’d be the best anyone had to offer. I don’t think you’ll see 3-4000 units, but it could be available on a doctor-per-doctor basis if a doc requested one.
Thanks for the comment. =)
Hey Dave.. Having tried a PDA pilot about 5 years ago i can say the platform/software wasn’t the big issue (I would, though I wrote it the softwar). The issues were very physically based – what happens when it’s dropped? or stolen? or bled on? Am I expected to input loads of text with no wrist rest? Some of that may well be less cutting edge nowadays but I wouldn’t bet the house on it.
As for Apple making the best HIT applications – IMO the markets are littered with failed attempt by horizontal vendors to break into vertical markets. I recall DEC trying and failing (on a number of occasions. Compaq, HP, CISCO, Oracle (ok maybe they’ve had a little success – but not with HTB). Apple may start with a great application but there is simply no choice but to integrate with other apps and Apple’s mindset doesn’t really work that way.
Anyway.. Any device that is at ward stations or carried by docs will need to run a number of apps – all but one of which will be Windows based. Hate to say it, but having a monopoly seems to help.