Dr. Chrono - Finally a practical use for the iPad

Until now I find that the iPad has just been a "cool" product to own and although I agree that it is very "cool" I have not seen a practical purpose for it, but now there is: meet Dr. Chrono.

Dr. Chorno is a new iPad application that will have electronic health records - finally time to say goodbye to the mounds of paper! The application is also available through iPhone and Android device. Physicians can carry around this application on their iPad when seeing patients and can view xrays & lab results, and make notes.

Dr. Chrono has been co-founded by Michael Nusimow and Daniel Kivatinos.

My Thoughts

I think its a great innovation and definitely something that can be very valuable to the healthcare system however, I predict there may be many hurdles with this and below are a few of my thoughts:

• How long will it take will until doctors are on board with this? What obstacles are in the way for doctors to use such an application?
• What about confidentiality issues? Will patients by okay with electronic records on an iPad, and what about the patients that are not okay with it?
• Many other applications like this have been developed and launched, eHealth has been heavily researched into this - how is Dr. Chrono different then the others that have not been as successful as planned?

This is great idea, and it would be beneficial if such a product was widely used. However, key issues for this application are the ease of adoption by doctor's due to use, cost, and process changes it implies. I think that without strong motivation it will be hard for a product like this to make substantial penetration to gain market share.