Are they lost, nowhere to be found?

[Andy Sjostrom]

Where have all the Pocket PCs gone? Hundreds of thousands sold. Where are they now? What are they all doing? I know where many Pocket PCs have gone! To hospitals, medical centers and institutes! Pocket PCs in the healthcare are used to manage patient records, monitor health status of patients, keep patients in touch with doctors and nurses, and so on. The latest solution I came across was hospital supply chain.<br /><br />The article <a href="http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2876102,00.html">"Hospital's mobile revolution starts with supply chain"</a> (thanks to Robert Anderson for the link) tells us about some hospitals in Bradford, England. A recenly implemented mobile application enables hospital staff to order supplies wherever they are in the hospital, a useful scenario that minimizes paper work and minimizes risk of getting short on vital supplies. "Wander" is what the system is called and the mobile application connects to .NET servers using Web Services. According to the system integrator and developer KPMG, the hospitals will continue to extend back-office functions to Pocket PCs: "Wander currently covers two-thirds of the supply chain function," said Ben Jones, head of development for design and engineering at KPMG. "The next step is to improve the back-office integration, including patient support, and then it will be extended to cover clinical applications. ... We believe there are about 100 to 250 people in the average hospital who could use this kind of technology," said Howe, and he believes there are similar environments outside the health sector."<br /><br />The system architecture is based on Microsoft .NET and the article outlines in more detail what products are used in this solution. An interesting remark concerning the choice of Pocket PCs was made: "Because the system uses a high level of intelligence in the handheld device, Pocket PC was the main contender for delivering the application. Tablet PCs were also considered, but were not mature enough, said Jones. "With Web services, the actual devices become irrelevant," said Jones. "We settled on the Pocket PC because we wanted to focus on usability."<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/health_01.jpg" />

[ECOslin]

Some two years ago I was involved with a local hospital planning and assembling 10 mobile stands to be moved from operating room to operating room, to support full Toshiba notebook computers with Wireless PCMCIA cards to network nodes in the ceiling tiles. The doctors and nurses would be able to pull up medical charts and xrays without leaving the rooms.

The particulars of this were that I had to build external battery packs with charging units for each stand, to run the laptops for 24hours without a recharge. I got batteries that would run the laptops for 40 hours, and integrated surplus battery chargers meant for those little children driven toy cars. I put them in marine battery boxes and mounted them to the base of the stand. Worked great.

Didn't last a year, wasn't convenient enough for the staff to keep using.

In the first 4 months I made a trip out for warranty repair of two for screen damage. One was broke screen, the other a bad inverter. I was able to fix one on the spot, by swapping parts.

Just didn't last. Maybe a PDA might work.

Edward

[CESkins]

Some two years ago I was involved with a local hospital planning and assembling 10 mobile stands to be moved from operating room to operating room, to support full Toshiba notebook computers with Wireless PCMCIA cards to network nodes in the ceiling tiles. The doctors and nurses would be able to pull up medical charts and xrays without leaving the rooms...Didn't last a year, wasn't convenient enough for the staff to keep using.

Here at the "Mecca" aka University of MI, we have computers in the OR. Two of them connected by ethernet to the network used to pull up patient histories/labs/tests or the OR schedule. One is used by anesthesia and the other by the surgical staff. Heck, the computers can even be used to send alphanumeric pages through our paging system and access medical texts/journals online (just in case one needs to reference/bone up on specific procedures). The difference between the above example and the UofM setup is that the computers never leave the OR and use a fast ethernet (vs relatively slower wireless) connection. Recently the university installed wireless nodes/access points on all its in-patient floors so that with a PocketPC/laptop and wireless network card, you could access a patient's info off our web based database right at the bedside (if one so wished). This is all very cool to say the least and will ultimately change the way medicine is taught and patient care is delivered. Some days I wish I were just starting out again (then again...NOT). :)

[fireflyrsmr]

have you ever done a survey of what industrys people are in using these pocket pc things? i've often wondered how many of the people speaking their mind in the forums come from the IT world vs. the Real world :wink: . how many are students? how many are in medicine? in manufacturing? in multinational corporate enviornments?

[bones]

I have often wondered the same thing.

Microsoft has a section of the mobility site with over 100 case studies of firms using Windows CE in many different industries, including Healthcare, Government, Financial Service's, etc....

http://www.microsoft.com/mobile/enterprise/casestudies/default.asp

I am looking for a broad analysis of where the bulk of large scale Pocket PC usage is going (what Industry) and how it is used (what application).

It would be great to find these numbers. If anyone has any idea......