Physicians Using an iPhone Application to Triage Their Patients

LabSoftNews posts Physicians Using an iPhone Application to Triage Their Patients.  This is an article about iTriage, an application which assists physicians in referring their office patients to regional hospital emergency rooms when necessary.  Seems like a perfect use of smartphones aka handheld computers.

The question of interest to me is when iPhones and other handheld computers will be useful for viewing digital pathology images.  And note I ask when and not if; it does seem only a matter of time.  But the small screens, relatively weak processors, and relatively slow network connections of smartphones make them poor candidates for viewing pathology images.  Still it might be far better than nothing to a pathologist traveling or away from her desk in case of a consult or frozen section or some other immediate viewing need.

We've had the ability to view digital slides on smartphones via a web interface for nearly two years, but although it makes a nice demo, my sense is that people aren't really using it for actual casework.  That could change, and a dedicated application might make sense when it does.