Posts by Marky hearts

Microsoft hires hippy to lecture resellers on being nice to the world

Pray tell

@Destroy all monsters

Pray tell, whence this fine quote came? I spent 3 years studying anthropology being drawn to the same conclusion, but in all the books I read never saw it so well put.

Head App Store plod punts farts 'n' wiz

I stand by my thesis (you can stand by your faeces)

Pay attention at the back. (ahem).. the Reg article observed that scat but not pussy was allowed by the controlfreak economy of Apple Appstore. My post said how this nicely illustrates Apple's wierdo puritanical tendencies. I didn't say I believed in any religion, I'm just observing it's legacy.

I can reassure you that the windows computer iPhone combination doesn't necessarily turn you into a fanbois, but the fact that you've just made an issue of it probably means that you have latent/repressed fanbois tendencies.

Anyway, I stand by my thesis (you stand by your faeces)

The Apple and the Original Sin

Think about it - isn't Apple (TM) actually a symbol of puritan guilt. It reminds the user that in order to use the computer to acquire knowledge one is renacting Adam accepting the 'Apple' from the tree of knowledge. Don't feel guilty fanbois, but you've just taken the apple, re-enactd the original sin, the fall of mankind, the price of knowledge.

If that sounds like academic toss it's because I taught the sociology of religion for a while. One of the little generalisations I seem to remember is the protestant/puritan attitude to the bod.

Protestant/Puritans have too many hangups concerning sex. So instead Puritans laugh at their bodies. And scatalogical humour is a part of that.

The thing is, that Apple is totally a Puritan company, fanbois are essentially puritan in that wierd minimalist chic that they do. A puritan computer is as plain as a Quaker meeting, it is pared down, it tries not to be fancy or ostentatious and glows from the inner light (TM). A 'catholic computer' is my vista machine with lots of dark corners and wierd ports, the mystery of windows crashing and all that.

Speaking from unfortunate experience, Apple users M+F are all bad lovers but they on average have more designer tattoos than Windows users, so this is clear evidence that they have a kinky relationship with their body. But what's wrong with letting the app store cater to that?

Paris, because you wouldn't too feel guilty afterwards...

iPads for hospitals: is this a good idea?

Monitoring Devices or Pen and Paper

The real focus of IT in healthcare should be in direct monitoring of the patient, using beside devices much the same as you find in AE departments nowadays. That way, you can have a central collection point for data, and you can sit and watch your patients vital signs (observations such as blood pressure, O2 levels, temperature) and these are recorded into a database.

Currently, on non AE wards observations are recorded at most every 15 minutes and it requires an auxillary nurse to go from patient to patient with monitoring devices, run checks and then update their notes at the foot of the bed. Introducing automated monitoring would save a huge amount of time, provide an adequate overview of the patient's progress, and allow data to be stored and retrieved on a central database.

Why isn't it done already? Mainly because there currently aren't monitoring devices that are unintrusive to patients - most people don't like having wires stuck to them. Unless they are in AE of course....

But if you'd prefer not to develop less intrusive monitoring devices and would prefer to give your doctors ipads (I can see a logic in that - it makes you seem like father christmas) then you are likely going to be using an input device for more impressionistic notes than automated observations. Funnily enough I''ve just been evaluating impressionistic data input devices for a healthcare setting, and concluded that the top three devices are:

1) Pen and paper

2) Dictaphone or telephone secretary

3) PC

Strangely enough, these are exactly the methods that have been in use in hospitals for the last 20 years or longer.

The optimum method is to use pen and paper, it's simple! If there's an issue with data management then get an ward administrator to type up salient notes into a PC front end database. Or buy a network OCR scanner for each ward (cost around 2-3K) so that notes can be parsed automatically (assuming that people don't mind writing everything in BLOCK capitals)

ipads and smartphones and iphones are okay, historically windows phones have been used a fair amount in wards too - but these are expensive devices and you have maintenance costs and the fact that they are rather too attractive to the ward magpies.

Alternatives include the Anoto pen, which is used extensively in healthcare settings. It uses a paper that is printed with tiny dots that tell the pen where on the page it is - and this is especially good for forms. However, the pens cost around £300 each and require looking after.

The point is, when people spend all their time looking after patients, at the end of the day they don't feel like looking after IT equipment.

NHS loses massive Microsoft licensing rebate

Google, SharePoint, deal.

This sounds like deal brokering. This time last year there was a lot of talk of the close ties that the current government have with Google.

from The Times July 6th 2009...

"Steve Hilton, one of David Cameron’s closest advisers, is married to Rachel Whetstone, the company’s vicepresident of global communications and public affairs. Mr Cameron flew to San Francisco to address the Google Zeitgeist conference in 2007 at the company’s expense. Five months ago, it was announced that Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, was joining a Conservative business forum to advise on economic policy"

...So y'know it may be that the current government aren't really interested in propogating Microsoft influence on the NHS. However, can you imagine an NHS flavor of google desktop? OMG maybe?

The current government also appears to want to decentralise the NHS, for example it's abolishing PCTs by 2013. Ironically a good way to abolish centralised structure in the NHS is to outsource computing to a cloud provider like Google. That way you turn operations into a donut of GPs, clinics and services, with little or no central bureaucracy or infrastructure to stand between them and the all powerful government.

The problem is that the NHS have already done so much with a Windows based intranet, they are one of the largest users of SharePoint in the UK. That is a fat investment, and for this reason, I cannot imagine them suddenly saying ooh well let's go to Linux because it's cheaper and forget all of our intranet stuff and our data collection - I know an NHS data analyst and his team uses Excel and Access to analyse data in one of the largest NHS trusts in the UK.

I may be proved wrong, but I think this whole story is about deal brokering. It wouldn't suprise me if MS are playing hardball to show that they're not afraid of Google et al. As for the other stuff - putting up prices, vendor tie-ins, expensive contracts, come on now you idealistic 6th formers. That's what you get for living in a capitalist system? What do you expect.