Tablet for Clinical Rotations

Hardware Hub Phones, Tablets, & Wearables
1

Hi everyone,

I'm a 3rd year pharmacy student and am wanting to buy an android tablet for my advanced clinical rotations coming up. I've looked at the Samsung offerings, the newer nexus 7, and a couple others, but I'm just not sure which would be best.

Basically this will be a strictly professional use tablet. I don't need a lot of storage, just enough for lots of word docs and pdfs of my reference notes, but I need it to be fast when dealing with documents and internet, reliable, and long battery. I also need a small one, about 7 inches, that will fit in my lab coat. I also don't need bells and whistles like a great camera and would prefer a vanilla android experience, but I am considering looking for an LTE in case my rotation site does not have wifi. I'm also on a tight budget being a study. 

 

So in a nutshell I need an android tablet that is affordable, fast, long battery, 7", vanilla android, decent screen, and LTE option would be great. Do not need large storage, cameras, other multimedia stuff. 

 

I know this might be a search for a holy grail, but any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

3

I have been in clinical IT environments before. The best piece of advice is to consult your site's IT Department. Most healthcare facilities are windows user environments and a few implementations are using Microsoft RDP Client for android and RDP'ing into a WS or a RD Farm or using Citrix. Both have android apps and both are horrible for the clinical field due to the nonexistance of scaling so on a 10" tablet that is trying to emulate a 22" monitor for a full desktop EMR you are going to be hurting. If you need a good Android Tablet I would go for the Nexus 9 or 7 like you aleady have. 

For storage due to HIPPA and other regulatory hassles using a tablet will most likely lead to massive encryption and I.T. Control over your device. I would by a small storage and something only for work use.  

4

Look into the Asus Memopad ME176CX-A1. I recently got this tablet for my birthday, and the battery will last for a good 10 hours throughout the entire day. I use it a lot and I get it to run for 2 days on a single charge. You'll also have the processing power to, with an Intel Atom Quad Core. 16GB of internal storeage (11 usable).

5

The way I see it there are two options:

- an x86 tablet running Windows, but those are not small.

- an android tablet with Android 5 for an advanced BYOD policy setup.

Any way you look at it, you'll have to follow the IT policy of the hospital, and that means that you need a device that supports advanced BYOD setups, or you're not going to use it for anything else than what the IT policy allows you to, and in that case, there is no point in investing in a device yourself.

6

Exactly. I have watched providers and staff bring in thousands of dollars worth of gear just to let it collect dust since whatever site I was on didn't support BYOD. A Windows Tablet is your best best for even getting a Healthcare IT team to work with it mostly decent.

7

Anything that's compact, won't get in the way during clinical rotations and possible emergencies, fast, and is compatible with what the hospital's IT department is using as a mobile solution. With Intel now optimizing their mobile platforms for better battery life and performance, you might want to look into that.

Also, a good screen. In your line of work and with all the lights you can have in a hospital, you might want to consider anti-glare screens.

9

Quick Update now that I'm a few months into my rotations

I ended up going with the 2013 Nexus 7 and haven't looked back. It's perfect for me and I'm sure it will suit my needs well into residency.

Key Findings
Given advances in tablets. It would be good to have a larger screen with smaller bezel for many clinical apps, which tend to be dense in text. However, the Nexus is perfect for fitting my my lab coat inside pocket, which is usually smaller than the outside pockets. Having a tablet taking up a whole outside pocket is a real compromise. So a larger tablet in general like an ipad mini is not ideal. I would consider one of the newer 8 inch tablets

Having a high resolution screen is a must, like the nexus. My colleagues who have lower quality tablets complain of eye strain.

Kitkat is super snappy and responsive. I've yet to have a need that the system cannot deliver on as far as compatibility.

Battery Life is great. I use the tablet exclusively for professional use, and I only have to charge it about once per week

If I had to do it over again I would have footed the extra money for LTE and added it to my wireless plan. A lot of clinical apps to not download their data and store it locally, and some make you pay extra for that ability. this means that if you don't have wifi, you can't access certain medical databases

Accessories:
I would go ahead and get a bluetooth keyboard, like the Anker Ultra-Slim. This is great to having more productivity on projects and research when you have a free hour to burn without having to lug your laptop to rotation.

Definitely get a hard shell case. That way you can easily clean it with alcohol frequently (like you should :P). I've also had it fall out of my pocket when things got a bit hairy in the emergency department once and once when I hustling to respond to a page. Also, a kick stand is a great feature to have.

If anyone has any other questions about a tablet for clinical use, shoot me a pm and I'll be glad to offer my advice :D