Can you believe that someone actually tracked the changing lineup of whiteboards the doctors use to make the dramatic diagnoses on the TV show House, MD? Yeah - me neither. But it’s chronicled in the Season 1 DVD Special Features, according to Shane Schick in the IT World Canada blog. Apparently the fictional crew had gone through 3 whiteboards (including a clear markerboard) before settling on a more stable, easier to erase model. But while frantic scrawling with a dry erase marker makes for entertaining drama, Schick figures the doctors might do better with an interactive whiteboard to consolidate and process data.
I agree with Schick, but it’s not as though all hospitals still live in the dry erase board age. Back in June, I wrote about a hospital in Canada using interactive whiteboard technology to make patient treatment more effective and efficient. No word on how it’s gone since then, but the doctors and nurses seemed to at least initially appreciate the convenience of pulling and analyzing patient information from multiple access points. In other words, treating patients and checking their records to gain insight and make the best decisions often requires being in multiple places at once, and the technology helps doctors and nurses achieve the physically impossible. Of course, as we’ve mentioned before, technology is only as good as the people who use it.
So how do you get more hospitals to adopt the technology? Simple, at least in theory - find an open-minded administration and staff willing to try something new in order to keep up with the growing number of patients and information. Of course, part of the issue lies in whether medical institutions are feeling enough pressure to change. But common sense tells me that a growing worldwide population with its accompanying medical needs will eventually necessitate a more widespread switch to interactive whiteboards or something like them. The doctors from House, MD and people like Phil Beadle may not like it, but sometimes drastic times call for drastic measures when lives hang in the balance.
Posted by Taeho Lim
