AN APPLE (IPAD) A DAY Apple’s iPads are going to take over in hospitals, and Bnei Brak’s Ma’ayanei Hayeshua Medical Center (MHMC) is the pioneer – the first Israeli hospital to give iPad technology to its doctors. Medical staff can now check patient records, test results, hiresolution X-rays and CT scans, report on patient progress and plan ongoing treatment using the latest hand-held computers.The hospital invested in the iPad version 4.2, customized for Hebrew, which allows clinicians instant touch-screen access to patient records and medical information via secure password-protected Internet.MHMC’s information technology team have programed the Apple iPad to interact with its Microsoft Chameleon program.According to hospital CEO Dr. Yoram Liwer, “the picture quality on the iPad screen enables our doctors to check high-resolution X-ray and scan images, either on the wards or from outside the hospital, and to diagnose and prescribe treatment at any time. Patients, too, were found to be happy with it. “That is why we are using the latest devices to help revolutionize patient care,” explained Liwer.Dr. Nir Cohen, head of the orthopedic surgery at the Orthodox-sponsored hospital, noted that “as head of the department, even working late at night from home, I can now give directions to medical staff during operations using my iPad, and check that vital treatment records have been entered correctly into the hospital system. This can help speed up surgical procedures, reducing the time spent under anaesthetic.”
BUT FACEBOOK CAN HARM DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP Doctors with a profile on Facebook may be compromising the doctor-patient relationship, because they don’t use sufficient privacy settings, indicates research recently published online in the Journal of Medical Ethics. The authors base their findings on a survey of the Facebook activities of some 200 postgraduate trainee doctors at Rouen University Hospital in France. Almost three-quarters said they had a Facebook profile, with eight out of 10 saying they had had a presence on the site for at least a year. One in four logged on to the site several times a day, but almost half did so several times a week.Virtually all physicians displayed sufficient personal information for them to be identified, and 91% displayed a personal photo. Just over half revealed their current post, while 59% provided information on their current university training site. Only a few Facebookers had received a friend request from a patient, four of whom accepted it. But such requests are likely to become more common, suggest the authors. While most respondents said they generate an automatic refusal to a friend request from a patient, one in seven (15%) said they decide on a case-by-case basis.The reasons given for accepting a patient as a friend included feeling an affinity with them and a fear of embarrassing or losing that patient if they decline. The need to keep a professional distance and the suspicion that the patient was interested in a romantic relationship were the primary reasons given for rejecting the request.“This new interaction (whether romantic or not) results in an ethically problematic situation because it is unrelated to direct patient care,” say the authors. “Moreover, public availability of information on a doctor’s private life may threaten the mutual confidence between doctor and patient if the patient accesses information not intended for them.” They warn MDs to be aware that comments and pictures posted online may be misinterpreted outside their original context and may not accurately reflect their opinions and reallife behavior. This information could also become accessible to people that it was not intended for, the authors concluded.