Better Health Care With Less PaperworkBetter Health Care With Less Paperwork

About 2,400 nurses, therapists, and other clinicians who make house calls to patients in New York are getting new Fujitisu Stylistic ST4000 Tablet PCs. Visiting Nurse Service of New York, a private, nonprofit home-health organization, has been using older Fujitsu tablets in the field since 1995. However, the new Windows XP-based units will further reduce the amount of paperwork clinicians need to do, improving patient care by closing windows for errors, says Rick Stazesky, IS director at VNSNY.

The new tablets also help the home-health group comply with security and privacy regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. VNSNY is also developing a tablet program that will let caregivers in the field digitally photograph and electronically send images of skin wounds, such as bedsores, to a patient's physician so that appropriate treatments can be applied to the patient sooner, he says. Although Stazesky wouldn't disclose the value of the Fujitsu deal, he said the price per tablet was $1,300 less than the models VNSNY purchased three years ago, noting that "Prices have dropped dramatically."