Jerry Fahrni

HealthBlog: ““For example, as the use of tablet PCs within healthcare continues to grow, many of us will welcome the improved hand-writing recognition facility in Windows 7. It also learns, so the recognition gets better the more I use it.” He says the same is true for voice recognition: “I just talk to my PC and it does what I want, from opening programs to dictating letters.” The true party piece of Windows 7, though, is its support for touch – not just touchscreens but what has come to be called ‘gesturing’; support for a sophisticated but more naturalistic way of interacting with technology. “Clinicians are able to zoom in on an image by moving two fingers closer together, like they’re pinching something, or zoom out by moving two fingers apart,” says Dr Crounse. “They’ll even be able to move an image on the screen by rotating one finger around another, and right-click by holding one finger on their target while tapping the screen with another.” This sort of natural manipulation of text, images and multimedia will make computer equipment less obtrusive in the clinician-patient relationship; and should make technology accessible to many communities which use healthcare extensively, yet were previously somewhat overlooked by IT: for example the elderly.” – I’ve been a proponent of touch technology for quite a while and firmly believe that it will have a positive impact on healthcare professionals. We’ve already seen an explosion in the number of devices developed to take advantage of Windows 7 and multi-touch technology. I, for one, can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of Windows 7 to install on my tablet.