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DQ News: mHealth: HP’s Defunct TouchPad Still Used for Health Care

Although HP’s TouchPad is on the chopping block, it continues to play a role in contemporary healthcare.

At California’s Stanford University, medical researchers us3 the device to control a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner, which procure highly detailed 3-D images of a human body, sans excessive radiation exposure.

The multitasking features of the interface allow researchers to switch back and forth between scans on the tablet. One app could provide a view of a patient’s bone structure and the other show how well a patient is breathing.

According to Andrew B. Holbrook, the research associate at Stanford’s School of Medicine who helped pioneer the app used to help MRI technicians, mobile tablets have a major role to play in the future of health care.

“It was a bit of a risk—if HP changed their mind, great!” Holbrook recently told eWeek. “If they ultimately followed through and shuttered the OS, well, we still made a lot of progress on bringing MRI control to tablet architecture, and we’d move on with what we’ve learned.”

They chose the mostly plastic TouchPad because it could be readily torn down and reassembled since HP didn’t use glue to hold the screen in place, said Holbrook, who had to strip all metal components from the TouchPad so that it can enter the MRI’s highly magnetized chamber.

Even though the TouchPad is being dropped by HP, Stanford medical researchers will continue to use the device.

“I hope to be using it in patient clinical trials within the coming months, as well as with other patient research once some other applications have progressed,” says Holbrook. “I do not doubt that tablet and mobile architecture will become more prevalent in MRI exams, especially for interventional scans or diagnostic scans that require more interaction.”

As always, be sure to check out our sister site, mHealthWatch.com for the latest mHealth news and updates.

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