Up to 100 iPads to be deployed at California hospital

This news report is a bit old, but it’s pretty cool (sorry if there’s an ad before that video). I’m no iPad fanboy, but if it helps get the job done better someplace like a hospital, where time is a seriously valuable commodity, then I’m all for getting more out there. The main benefit cited is the 10-hour battery life, though it will likely be shorter than that if it’s constantly using the Wi-Fi or 3G to pull live feeds from patients and remote locations. But it has to be better than the two or three hours the doctors interviewed say their current hardware goes for.
Doctors will also want to make sure the touchscreens work with gloves, and some protective covers would be nice. Lots of fluids shooting all over the place in hospitals. And they’d have to clear out the fans a lot too to prevent airborne contaminations. But with a bevy of already-compatible iPhone apps for working in a hospital environment, the iPad does actually seem like a pretty logical choice, at least if the users are already familiar with it.
20 are in use right now, but they expect to increase that number to as much as 100. If it catches on, that’s a lot of sales for Apple. I wonder if they have special iSphygmomanometers and such?
Heh, that blood-spattered iPad turned out pretty good.
[via MacNN]