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Sep200930

yandlej

0

Turning the Pages

rhinoThe National Library of Medicine’s new service called “Turning the Pages” has made it possible to virtually flip through six treasured 16th century books from the National Library of Medicine’s collection.  Developed by the British Library, Turning the Pages, was created for visitors to touch and turn the pages of virtual books displayed on a touch screen monitor in an intuitive manner. The National Library of Medicine became the first US site for Turning the Pages in 2001, converting books from their own historic collection in the biomedical sciences to this format. The National Library of Medicine has now made this service available to everyone with online selections such as Johannes de Ketham’s Fasiculo de Medicina, Robert Hooke’s Micrographia, and the newest selection Hieronymus Brunschwig’s Liber de Arte Distillandi. Not only can you flip through the books page by page with their interactive interface but, you can also hear audio clips about the history of the book and download or print high resolution images of the pages.

If you’d like to learn more about the technology behind the Turning the Pages visit their website or get started Turning the Pages of these beautiful texts.

Jun200918

yandlej

0

iPhone use in Hospitals

Physicians at Doylestown Hospital in Pennsylvania needed something that is a beeper, cell phone, and tool for getting information about patients in real time. According to a recent article from Apple,  the “iPhone became an instant favorite among Doylestown physicians, in part due to its ease of use.” The physicians rely on iPhone features like push email, calendar, and contacts from Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. One of the greatest uses has been the ability to give doctors secure mobile access to the hospital’s electronic medical records system, MEDITECH Client/Server 6.0. “Literally anywhere a physician is in the world, as long as that doctor has secure access to the Safari browser on iPhone, they can access patient information.” The iPhone has helped the Doylestown medical team work more efficiently, improving communications not only between doctors, but throughout the local healthcare community.

The key to using smart phones in hospitals is secure access, which is one reason some people are concerned about people using the iPhone.  The Krafty Librarian points out that at a majority of hospitals “Blackberry’s are the only mobile phones that are able to access email from off campus.  Many hospitals were very reluctant to allow iPhone users the same type of email access because of security concerns.“ iPhones simply were not created with the business user in mind. However, an exciting new app may change all of that. Citrix Receiver is a free app that enables iPhone and iPod touch users to run any Windows application as a service on their device. Connecting to a Citrix XenApp environment, iPhone fans can securely work with apps from Oracle, SAP, McKesson, Cerner, and other vendors. The only information sent over the wireless connection consists of screen taps, gestures, keyboard input, and screen updates so it is simple to keep data secure. In enterprises, such as hospitals that depend heavily on Citrix already, we should see more hospitals allowing the same types of access to iPhone users that we already see with Blackberry users.