Geeks versus Health Care

"The problem with the interactions between health care pros and geeks has been the promise and failure of technology on many occasions to make our jobs better and easier...."

" I'm working with a patient bed now that incorporates a wide variety of features that makes it much more comfortable and ergonomic for both the patient and the nurse. And it works wonderfully - when it works. But some geek decided to put the controls, LCD panel, and circuit board in the bedrail - a bedrail that is slammed up and down all day and night as patients get in and out of bed, as they yank back and forth on it to adjust their position, and as staff pull on it to guide the bed down the hall to OR, CT, X-ray, etc. Pretty soon the bed either 'crashes', needing a reboot keypress that would cause an EMACS user to dislocate a phlange, or has a complete hardware failure. The bed dies."

Preach it, Alwin!

(Nice EMACS jab, that.)