Intel tailors tablets for hospitals

Nurses at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center (UCSF) will be among the first healthcare workers to use a tablet-like PC developed specifically for medical professionals by Intel and Motion Computing.

The $2,199 C5 is technically called a "mobile clinical assistant" but it's basically a small tablet PC redesigned for a hospital environment. Intel CEO Paul Otellini and Motion Computing CEO Scott Eckert showcased the device during an event in San Francisco yesterday. The C5 was first unveiled during last September's Intel Developer Forum.

Otellini said: "It allows work to be done where work gets done." The C5 looks like a small slate-style tablet PC with a handle at the top. It has been coated with a special material that can withstand the frequent use of disinfectant cleansers and that helps protect it against falls.

Nurses at UCSF and other hospitals around the country currently measure a patient's vital signs with one medical device. But they have to manually transfer the data to one of several rolling laptop PCs - referred to as COWs, or computers on wheels - so it can be captured in a patient's medical history file and made available to other doctors.

This low-tech approach can lead to transcription errors by fatigued nurses and potentially serious medical problems for patients, said Ann Williamson, nursing director at UCSF. The C5 is directly connected to the other medical equipment used to take a patient's pulse or measure their blood pressure, so data is instantly recorded and transferred to a hospital server.

This also allows nurses to spend more time with patients, because they don't have to leave the patient to find the nearest COW or deal with having to log in to the shared COW every time, Williamson said.

Intel and Motion are hoping the C5 helps drag the healthcare industry into the 21st century of IT. Healthcare is the world's largest industry but it is woefully behind in its use of IT for tasks such as record keeping, Otellini said. Intel created its Digital Health Group about two years ago to learn more about how the technology industry can serve - and take advantage of - the looming surge in demand for healthcare services as populations in the Western world age.

Tablet PCs haven't taken over the PC industry the way some might have hoped but they are extremely popular with healthcare workers, Motion's Eckert said. The devices "enable doctors and nurses to deliver the best care they can", he added.

Tom Krazit writes for CNET News.com