Review of Atom-Powered Toughbook Medical Tablet

An anonymous reader writes "Intel has spent years talking up the digital health sector, and now Panasonic has come up with a product to make that category worthwhile. The Toughbook CF-H1 is a fully rugged mobile computer designed for the medical profession. Of course it can be dropped and doused in water, but it's got some other cool tricks too like a built in RFID scanner, wireless smartcard reader and a barcode scanner. It's also using the 1.86GHz Atom, which is rarely seen." I'd like this: a small, low-power tablet suitable for klutzes.

Comments

handle

[Anonymous Coward]

More machines need handles like that. It makes skipping down the street while singing a song so much easier.

Oops

[sstpm]

That would be a heck of a thing to leave inside a patient after surgery.

Secure?

[ParanoidJanitor]

It doesn't seem like such a good idea to integrate an RFID reader into the tablet as a security device. Any hospital that can afford equipment like this will probably have tons of people walking down the hall with RFIDs that can grant access to these things. The only way that this could really add to the security is if it's part of some multiple authentication system (i.e. require two methods of authentication to log in out of three, but even that sounds like a bad idea.)

There was also no mention of any encryption of the medical records stored on these things. I definitely wouldn't trust Windows permissions to keep the records on these safe. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great step toward making hospitals more efficient, but they need to be secure or they'll just be a liability.

Re:Secure?

[DAldredge]

Think reading the RFID from the patients wrist band to verify the correct records are being used.

Re:Secure?

[pathological liar]

RFID tags are good for more than just authentication... they're used for tracking things too, remember? There was an article a while ago I think about RFID tagging surgical instruments to help avoid them being left in the patient. I'm not sure if this thing will be able to be brought into an OR or not, but you could conceivably have pharmacists scanning things before giving them out, nurses/misc. staff scanning things before use, etc.

There's no reason for records to be stored on them at all, that's what VPNs are for.

Re:Secure?

[QuantumRiff]

Many hospitals are using RFID not as an authentication, but as an identifier. IE, this is patient X, and these are their 13 medications, without having to scan all 13 medications at the same time. Embedded in prescription labels and wristbands and such.

Cool Hacking Device

[powerlord]

Okay, so let me get this straight, in one Tablet you've got a wireless smart card reader, an RFID reader, a barcode scanner, a finger print scanner, a 2Mpixel camera w/dual LED lights, can house two battery packs, 802.11 a/b/g/draft-n, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR,

and according TFA

You can also specify an integrated 7.2mbps HSDPA adapter, or even a GPS receiver.

Except for the 1GB RAM, and the Atom processor, this sounds like a Security Crackers dream box (for information gathering, or anything where you won't need quick keyboard access).

Portable == easy to steal

[benjfowler]

It looks like a really nifty piece of kit. Rugged, good-looking and portable. And easy to steal (let's ignore the fact that you'd look like a complete tit if you tried to fence of of these things down the pub).

I'd hope to God that sensitive patient clinical data is either very well secured on the machine (e.g. encrypted hard drives), or accessed remotely.

Well, I'm not saying that it would be any harder to steal than a paper patient medical record file (which aren't all that hard to steal or interfere with because lots of people are careless), but being an expensive piece of kit, much more attractive to opportunistic thieves. Not to mention the fact that an inch-thick ruggedized PC can store a HELL of a lot more sensitive data than an inch-thick bundle of paper patient records.

Re:Portable == easy to steal

[crazycheetah]

At the hospital where I work, all of the data is held on the servers and accessed through a Citrix client. As painful as that is some days, it does solve that problem, as far as anyone running off with the computer, anyway. Not sure how everyone else does it, though, but we use one of the more popular software packages from CERNER--and how I hate their package in our environment lately, but it's practically my job.

Re:Never mind all that....

[Gyga]

It'll stand up a little better than the patient would.

See Also: Motion Computing C5

[Symphonix]

http://motioncomputing.com/products/tablet_pc_c5.asp I have the Motion C5 here right now on trial, and can't help but notice the similarity.

Re:See Also: Motion Computing C5

[drachenstern]

Atom processor, dual batteries, and the Toughbook name. I'ld say those are three distinct differences. Before you pointed it out, I had no idea that motioncomputing made ruggedized laptops. Granted, I don't do anything requiring ruggedized laptops, but I knew that Panasonic made the Toughbook. So having said all that, I'll just touch up one other point. The reason I called out the Atom over the Core processor on your C5, is that the Atom is lower powered, thus generating less heat over time, and it'll suck less battery as well. Granted, the hog on these IS the LCD, so there's not a tremendous amount of difference, but still.

Toughbooks live up to their name... sort of.

[Soulfader]

We used a Panasonic Toughbook in Afghanistan in some pretty nasty places, and it held up very well. Never had any problems except for the screen, which just couldn't take the dust contamination and the scratches, and even that could have been alleviated somewhat by not using the stylus.

We had an adapter that allowed us to charge the thing off one of our standard 5590 SINCGARS radio batteries. Even batteries too discharged for the radio would power the laptop for a few more hours; a fresh one would run the laptop for 24 hours or so.