I just read an interesting article on the future of hospital technology and if we will ever get to the point where the paper use is done away with. The author of the article came to the conclusion that it is almost impossible to completely get rid of paper in hospitals because of the need of so many people to have certain information. An example is that you cannot give every nurse a handheld computer because the costs would just sky rocket.
There is a company in Austin that is focusing on developing technology just for medical use. They specialize in software and hardware that enables doctors to move from patient to patient with all of the patient’s info stored at a central database accessible through Bluetooth or some other wireless technology with a handheld device. Their products still somewhat hinge on paper though as all of the non-doctor staff uses paper to checkin on patients and perform routine visits.
It will be very interesting to see where medical computer use goes from here.