The write idea
- Article 1 of 26
- M-iD, October 2003
A digital pen tracks and records its own movements – making it possible to know what is written, when, and by whom.
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Accenture Labs is making a big play in healthcare. “There is a huge movement globally to electronic patient records. But the obstacle to that is the extent to which patient records are handwritten,” says Carlill. And, he might add, not just written, but also written hurriedly and badly.
Accenture has developed a proof-of-concept system for hospitals that illustrates the advantages of the digital pen for that environment. It is based around observation charts, which doctors and nurses use to record changes in patients' vital signs over time.
The big advantage of the system is that it lets doctors and nurses continue working as they always have - with pens and charts. The difference now is that pens are digital. The medical staff update the physical, paper chart, and this continues to be accessible to staff without a computer - usually at the foot of the patient's bed; but since the charts are printed on the micro-patterned paper required by the Anoto pen, the pen is also able to record the amendments made to the records and therefore to update the computerised patient record almost instantly. That means the data is instantaneously available to, for example, a doctor at remote location. Analytics and exception alerts - to tell the doctor that blood pressure is falling too fast, for example - make the doctor's job easier still.
An added benefit is that the uniqueness of the pattern used for each chart means that the system knows precisely whose chart is being updated, preventing mix-ups; it can also keep a record of when changes are made and by whose pens.
Carlill predicts that digital pens will be widely taken up within the next year. “I see it being adopted, if not in 2003, then over the next 12 months, certainly,” he says.
BT Exact's Payne agrees that the time of the digital pen is approaching soon, as a wave of vendors release new technology. “I could have sold them by the bucket-load. Everyone I've shown it to thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. They all saw applications for it in everyday life.”
What may stop the onrush of the digital pen is cost. At $200 or so for a pen (excluding Bluetooth- and GPRS-equipped mobile phone for mobile workers) the cost is not cheap. “If you've got 2,000 users on the road, that's quite a lot of money,” points out Burtwistle.
But with prices already falling, Burtwistle says that objections will also drop away. “There's always someone who has to go up ladders and do the physical work. They can't carry big expensive mobile phones, PDAs, or laptops. Pen and paper is how it's done.” Soon, that might be digital pen and paper.
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