iPad - When It Matters Most

From emergency rooms to Wall Street, to commercial airlines and law enforcement. People who depend on technology to work in a critical environment depend on iPad. These case studies show that iPad is the clear choice when it matters most.

Saving Lives

According to Future Nova, the United States and Europe are enhancing patient services by implementing the use of iPads in hospitals, doctor's offices, and emergency rooms. "The iPad is the dominant tablet, and new software allows the iPad to work seamlessly in a hospital environment." Doctors and patients access their medical chart from the iPad rather than a paper chart. Electronic patient charts stored in the cloud can be accessed and updated by multiple specialists at once, improving the level of care.

According to three Mayo Clinic physicians, the iPad is responsible for saving Andy McMonigle's, life. The patient has a history of heart trouble and felt pounding pressure in his arm. Dr. Daniel Lueders, Dr. Christopher DeSimone, and Dr. Daniel DeSimone were there to help McMonigle. Lueders grabbed the iPad from his backpack and quickly connected to the Mayo EMR (electronic medical records) system.

Viewing McMonigle's history, he discovered that four years before the incident the patient had symptoms of a heart attack and had a stent put in. After reading his medical records, the team believed he had a blockage in the stent. Doctors were able to quickly compare the iPad's EKG record side-by- side with a printout from the ambulance and confirmed their suspicion.

With insight gained from the iPad, they quickly activated an emergency code to have a team waiting and sent McMonigle directly to the cardiac catheterization lab to remove the clot instead of sending him to the ER first. This decision saved his life because the artery was 90 percent blocked (2013).

When moments count and lives hang in the balance, critical care doctors depend on iPad.

Doctors and Hospitals

The Jacobs Medical Center at UC San Diego Health has 245 beds and iPads in every room. This allows the patients to have control of the room, access to personal medical information, information about their care team, and entertainment to ease the stress of a hospital stay..

Emerson Hospital in Massachusetts uses iPads for real-time nurse rounding. Improves care for patients because the nurses can monitor medical care, manage pain, administer medication and track patient condition, in real-time, from the iPad.

Whiston Hospital in St. Helens staff report that the iPad has reduced high-risk admissions to critical care, eased pressure on emergency teams, and reduced the amount of time spent recording patient information. The many benefits of using iPads, allow the staff to focus more of their time on the patients. (2017)

Ochsner Medical Center uses the iPad to track inpatient and outpatient sleep patterns and steps taken to give the doctors insight into the progress of their recovery. Ochsner's chief transformation officer, Richard Milani, uses an iPad system, that notifies doctors via Apple Watch when a patient's test results are available; providing faster care in life-threatening cases.

Before the use of this system, doctors had to check the computer system that did not provide instant notification, to see if the test results were uploaded. (iPads in Every Hospital. 2017)

The University of Chicago Medicine Program has posted on their website how to address many hospital logistic concerns by using an iPad in a clinical setting. Including, EMR, security, infection control, and how to manage an enterprise deployment of iPads.

iPads have become very popular in the medical world, and this interest will continue to grow as more hospitals express a need for mobile technology. The reliability, security, and ease of use all have a significant role in providing the benefits that are available to hospitals using the iPads.

Commercial Airline Pilots

To handle the complex task of maneuvering of a plane from airport to airport, pilots must have constant access to information and make swift decisions. iPads have been determined by the FAA to be the most efficient tools for pilots to have in the cockpit to aid in decision-making. The most important feature the iPads provides is ease of use. Pilots use the iPads as a replacement for their traditional flight bag, which contains information such as navigational tools, weather reports, manuals, and schematics of the plane. An Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) replaces these paper documents and can be used right away with very little training. Also, the iPad is updated with new information on the fly. These features help reduce worry for pilots and crewmembers while in the air.

British Airways Captain Dave Thomas, a longtime pilot, stated “Aircraft have constantly developed during my career—everything always moves on. But I have never seen anything move us as fast as the iPad.”

American Airlines was the first to hand out iPads to their pilots. In December of 2011, the FAA approved the use of iPads in cockpits for the replacement of paper flight manuals after six months of trial flights to approve the iPads as an improvement to the traditional flight bag.

Southwest Airlines switched over to electronically-accessed aircraft operating manuals and navigational charts in 2014. Southwest has over 9,000 pilots using iPads as their primary flight bag. Southwest pilots can view live on the iPad, "...multiple forms of detailed data on weather and other hazards on an easy-to-read display."

JetBlue uses the iPad's GPS feature to track the plane's location on the tarmac. It aids the pilots when taxiing planes around an airport they are not familiar with, especially on foggy days. Chuck Cook, a JetBlue captain, said: "It is a godsend to have that information." JetBlue has petitioned to the FFA to use the GPS feature of the iPad to report aircraft locations while flying and to use the iPad's accelerometer to record in-flight turbulence. JetBlue hopes the FAA will use this data to issue advisories to nearby aircraft. Back on the ground, the crew downloads in-flight data directly from the aircraft to an iPad for analysis during maintenance.

The ease of use is such that the FAA has determined that pilots can safely use iPads in the cockpit. Additionally, by dropping the traditional flight bags, which were quite large, airlines can reduce the amount of fuel used for flights. It also reduced the cost to print and distribute bulletins for flight crews, and ended the headache of pilots updating their printed manuals after every revision. Instead, this information is live-updated to the iPad, without a need to coordinate distribution and printing.

Business and Enterprise

iPad is the primary tablet used for businesses because of the many different roles an iPad can play. From diagnostic tool to customer engagement, to personal productivity manager, to point of sale, and more. iPad is the premier tool trusted by professionals to get the job done.

IBM is considered a technology services powerhouse and has created over 100 business- oriented apps for the iPad’s iOS operating system.

Cisco Systems manages corporate computer networks and is developing software that gives priority to mobile devices and apps. Cisco and Apple are working together on this optimization.

Microsoft has teamed up with Apple to make the iPad Pro a success by creating fully capable versions of its Office apps for use on iPad.

As a POS is, “the most common use for an iPad in retail stores.” iPads are light, compact, and easy to carry around. This aids in helping staff engage with customers anywhere in a store or restaurant. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, a legacy POS system based on a Windows PC can range from $3,000 to $50,000. iPad POS tablets are much less expensive, have more features, are more reliable and are a more mobile alternative to a traditional POS system.

Law Enforcement

Police departments buy iPads for officers to use in their vehicles to provide up to the moment information on- scene to help with investigations. iPads are a lighter, easier to use and less expensive alternative to specialized law enforcement computers.

Better, Cheaper, Faster - Police officers are getting away from the standard computer systems in their police cars. According to Sheriff Jerry Larpenter of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff's Office in LA, earlier computer systems in police officers' cars were about $3,000 per car versus a setup using iPad, and Bluetooth keyboards is around $500 per car. iPads are also less time consuming to maintain than the earlier computer systems. LT. Bobby Dupre stated that "Ninety percent of my time used to be spent fixing and replacing the computers. Since we have installed the new iPads, we have not had a single problem." Sgt. Turley believes that iPads are durable enough for police officers to carry because an IT professional threw an iPad down the hall and it still worked properly.

In addition to completing tasks that were done in the past with single-purpose tablets, bulky laptops and MDTs (mobile data terminals) installed in squad cars, iPad can also complete jobs that officers were previously unable to do in the field. According to Melanie Basich, a professional who interviews members of law enforcement, one reason police officers are using iPads is because of size. For an example, police officers who use motorcycles can attach iPads to their bike more efficiently than the computers that were previously used.

Identifying and Catching Criminals - Officers have also told Basich that iPads are used for photographic lineups and to verify the residence of sex offenders. Standard lineups are printed out photographs, typically 6 x 6, that are kept in a heavy binder. Police departments store hard-copies of hundreds of photos. If a lineup were needed, a police officer would have to make a trip to retrieve the required photographs from the police department and bring them back to the victim. Detectives can email pictures for the lineup while the field officer is still at the crime scene, saving precious time.

Redlands PD officer Lt. Chris Catren states, "We had a suspect identified within about 15 minutes of the robbery occurring because we had the photo lineup done on the iPad." Police departments are also using iPads to verify the residences of sex offenders. Instead of filling out paperwork and carrying around boxes and binders full of hard copies of photographs, police officers can have all the documents they need, stored on the iPad.)

Detailed Crime Scene Investigations - According to Lauren Nadeau, another reason iPads are used in the field is because there are apps to make suspect sketches, take photos of crime scenes, and mark images. Another useful ability is to record victim's statements as either audio or video. Jefferson County Detective Sgt. Darrell Turley states that this is "more efficient than when they were using paper notepads."

iPad aids the investigation process by increasing communication when moments matter. Police officers can record and send surveillance video by having the owner play the footage and recording it on their iPad. The officers send the recording to detectives, instead of waiting for technicians to extract the video from proprietary security systems.

Helping Solve More Crimes - Police are able to write reports in the field now because of the iPads. Instead of waiting to go back to the office to type up reports, police officers can complete the report while it is fresh in their mind, to ensure all the relevant information is recorded. This saves police officer's time, the reports are filed quicker, they are more accurate, and the officers can focus on more pressing matters. The iPad's GPS system also allows detectives and police officers to pinpoint specific locations while doing an investigation and have "access to the in-house crime map that shows reported crimes and the location of sex offenders." This helps officers identify potential criminals and where crimes take place.

iPad is a reliable and feature-rich tool for law enforcement officers who depend on fast communication and the ability to capture and document subtle details. The issues that officers deal with are often cases of life and limb, and they do not have time for systems to go down, for technology to stop working or for things to break. They turn to the proven iPad platform to fulfill these requirements.

These are just some examples of the various ways that Apple's superior tablet is being used in critical situations and in industries where reliability and speed are critical. iPad brings these things together with creative, industry-specific apps that help police solve crime, doctors, and nurses cure sickness, businesses keep moving and flight crews in the air.