Must be a UK thing.
Our hospitals typically are almost entirely electronic (no orders, notes, tests, results without computers). Our entire department has smartphones (palm OS mostly). We have tokens for home access. For hospital rounds having your labs updated on your PDA real time is nice (We used to write all these down in the morning and recheck later in the day). You have the most up to date info as you walk in a room. We have laptops at each bed in our ICUs for vitals and orders. They are not 386s and are pretty nice for PCs, but none are Macs.
I haven't seen a paper lab sheet in ~10 years. Our films have been digital for 5-6. Even the rural hospitals that refer to us in AL usually send CDs w/ images (not film).
I'm really surprised, I always figured a more socialized environment like the UK would make better use of information technology. Our government systems were great years ago (having seen military and VA systems).
On another note:
Epocrates supposedly was going to make an iPhone package. I e-mailed them June of last year
and they said as soon as Apple would allow 3rd party software they'd get started. They did a presentation at the announcement of the SDK, but I didn't hear anything at the keynote. I hope they are on schedule, the pictures of the pills will be cool when someone is on 3 meds and stopped the little yellow one...I'll wait on this to convert to iPhone. I'll bet it is available at launch as they support web access, win mobile and palm already.
This has to be a huge industry. Apple will sell a lot of iPhones to hospitals as the display and interface will allow a better experience, provided the software gets there.
