New Toy -- Blue Tooth Powerpoint by Impatica

I received my new toy*; a Blue device to link my Blackberry and LCD projector. Impatica makes a Bluetooth enable interface to connect your Blackberry (or Palm or whatever) to your LCD projector. No more laptop.

You convert your powerpoint presentation using software sent with the unit then simply link your Blackberry to the Impatica device (our IT manager is going to look at the BES version of the program depending on cost). Very cool stuff. The only downside is you still need a power source for it but they use a USB interface with plug (the same one that charges the Blackberry will do).

*I bought this commercially and have no relationship with the company. I just like the product.

RIM Reigns Supreme

J. Gold & Associates, a well known technology analyst firm has just published it's poll of over 400 business' and found that the preferred mobile client is still RIM's Blackberry with 69% of the market. They also expect RIM to retain that margin over the next 3 years.



That is good news for me since our doctors are now increasingly dependant on crackberry's.



A major difference between RIM and it's competitors (iPhone, Microsoft Mobile) is it's ability to track the PIN number of the smart phone between tower/carriers and deliver messages when they arrive rather than having the phone constantly ping the carrier. The result is 1/2 the bandwidth use, longer batter life and lower maintenance costs. For a fantastic discussion of how each technology manages email, video and communications click here.



Other highlights of the report are:


• BlackBerry will remain the dominant player in mobile platform deployments by a substantial
margin with 65.5% now, falling slightly to 59.3% in 3 years.

• Windows Mobile will gain in importance over the next 3 years, increasing from 22.5% to 28.6%
• Apple’s iPhone will be important to 16% of companies in 3 years
• Google’s Android will garner a relatively small 4.8% in 3 years, behind Palm (9.1%), Linux
(6.1%) and Nokia (5.6%).

New Toys

I spent the weekend working with some new toys:

1. Google Chrome
2. Blackberry Bold

Google Chrome is the new browser (beta version) from Google (you can download it here). It's new, it's cool and I'm using it. When you open a new tab it automatically shows a list of windows that you recently visited. It also has one box for search and addresses with autofill/suggestions. I've had some problems getting into our office system using a Remote Desktop Web Connection. Hopefully those bugs will be worked out in the coming months.

Blackberry Bold is the new crackberry from RIM. The Bold is fantastic. A little larger than the curve with a high resolution screen and excellent document management properties. You can zoom in and out with one finger. Switch to internet through WiFi with a button. Surf the net with Java Script enabled. I've also ordered a bluetooth device that will let me present PowerPoint presentations from the Bold (no more laptop!). All in all it was worth the wait.

Blackberry Bold

I recently wrote a post about the new Blackberry Bold and the latest BES Server (the software that joins corporate computers to the handhelds). John Halamka at Life as a Healthcare CIO took some time to review the iPhone 3G. John is a self professed Apple devotee and his bottom line is that if they can solve some keyboard issues it will be serious competition for the Blackberry. That being said, he still reported some major issues with synchronization, battery life and calender issues.

As a Blackberry fan I'm biased towards Research in Motion and have it on good authority that their multimedia management in the Bold will compete with the iPhone 3G. Nine years ago, Blackberries where just starting to push email, now convergence of the consumer and enterprise communities is pushing the limits of what we can do on handhelds. It looks like a battle in both the consumer and enterprise community is really on; here's hoping that RIM wins!

The New RIM Blackberry Bold and Primary Care

Living in the home town of Research in Motion (maker of the Blackberry) you get a little treat every now and again. One of them came in 1999 when someone told me to buy stock in the company (which I of course ignored) and the other was to see the new Blackberry Bold last week. The only way to describe the Bold is a cross between an iPhone and traditional Blackberry. It’s got a high resolution screen, keyboard, video, camera, music player, Wi-Fi, GPS and every feature you can imagine. Since 1999 I’ve owned five different Blackberrys and based on my initial impression this one is going to change commerce. The Bold looks like it could be the candidate that will merge the business and consumer applications. Before people reading this blog think I’ve been paid to do a promotion, I’ll get to the point of the article. I and many others have posted about the inefficiencies of EMR and digital note keeping. How clinicians often stop writing notes because it takes them longer to get into and out of the notes section than to see the patient. The Bold’s design, high resolution screen and connectivity has the potential to be able to view a days schedule on Blackberry, pull up the patient the way you normally would and make notes. Because it would be your personal Blackberry, log-in and log-out could be authenticated through the BES server (which connects your corporate email to the Blackberry network) and available on your hip. It has the potential to replace a computer in every room.

Nothing is so easy, however, because pushing data out is one thing (which RIM has mastered) but sending it back is quite another. Part of the problem, as I understand, has to do with authentication. In a digital nervous system there exists an active directory of user names and passwords which grant permissions' to users over a network. This is the reason you can log onto any computer in a clinic without loading your user information first. Blackberry’s would need to authenticate the specific patient entry, send it back through the BES server, into the network and finally into the clinical software. To complicate matters the clinical software often requires its own password. To create a secure zone between your Blackberry and the database that manages patient data is not simple; for now.

With the launch of the Blackberry Bold, RIM also announced the release of their BES Server 5.0 which has something called Blackberry Administrator Service (BAS) and Unified Application Management. Simplified, it means that the BES server may be able to turn your Blackberry into the equivalent of a desktop computer with all of the security and functionality of a wired network but available over a WAN.

The reason I bring this up for smaller clinics is that the cost of EMR is not small and the ROI dubious. RIM has been involved in hospitals but I have not heard of them pushing data into and out of small databases like they do with Exchange. As I found out the hard way, the greatest cost of ownership is not the EMR package but the network and peripherals. One of the reasons our own clinic hasn’t changed to tablets is that both the hardware (tablets & Wi-Fi) and maintenance of a wireless database network is expensive.


Providing a Blackberry to clinicians over a Wi-Fi or WAN is much less expensive than installing and maintaining your own complete network. Plus, RIM has already mastered secure data transmission. If possible, a BES server would simply be installed next to the EMR server and clinicians could access and enter information immediately. Like with any IT roll-out the project should improve quality and efficiency. If it only does one or the other it will be an up-hill battle. If it does neither, the project is doomed. RIM BES Server 5.0 and the Blackberry Bold have the potential to capitalize on the database changes that are occurring because of Health 2.0. Assuming that the back end of Blackberry can be synchronized the Bold looks to be a promising front end which would provide the quality of the tablet in a more cost-effective and efficient manner.