DiversityNursing Blog

Dozens of teachers and health care providers went back to the classroom recently. They attended the I-pad Institute at the University of Cincinnati. 

Local 12's Liz Bonis got to sit in and learn a few things too. From the letter you get by email when you are accepted to nursing school, to no more paper in the classroom. The first thing I learned at the I-pad Institute is that going I- Tech, is likely a heartbeat away from a health care setting near you!

For health care providers or in this case, nurses in training. "We are helping them learn how to use the technology to deliver safe patient care," says Robin Wagner, assistant professor.

Robin Wagner, a nursing instructor, says for example, even if you are sitting here, with the help of iPad learning, you can virtually go inside the doctors office and when it comes to giving hands on care, such as taking a blood pressure, not only can you see how in here, you can see what's happening in the body on this virtual organ because, believe it or not, there's an app for that! "They can actually see what the hearts doing and in the past we would have just described that, this valve opens this one closes. Now, they can actually see that," says Wagner. 

The really exciting part of all this however, is not just what happens here in the teaching and learning environment, it is what happens when you take that to the next level. Perhaps with robotics? In this I-Tech learning lab for students and staff, I got to observe just a few weeks ago, I met Flo-Bot. "They are going to be using the iPad to control Flo-Bot, our robot, so it has an app that will allow the students to drive the interaction with patients," says Chris Edwards. 

As Chris Edwards explains, Flo-Bot is designed for health care providers to be able to better diagnose and assist patients, even at a distance if needed.  

Please view the video in the below link.

Source: Local 12 Cincinnati (Video Available Here)

by Veronica Combs

There are about eight halls of exhibitors at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show and I swear at least one of them was full of iPhone cases and nothing else. I just bought a Droid Razr and I hate the Otter Box that I bought with it, so I was quite disgusted that I couldn’t find an alternative in this sea of cases.

Anyway, there were several practical iPhone and iPad accessories at the show, mixed in with the Spider-Man and jeweled options. Here are three that would keep your Apple device safe no matter what job you have in healthcare:

LifeProof

This booth had several small stages with a chef, a firefighter, and a doctor — each one explaining the merits of this protector. It is a thin, polycarbonate frame that goes around the device.

It’s waterproof up to 6.6-feet deep for 30 minutes and keeps out dust. The nice part about the waterproof seal is that it goes around the edge of the screen, so you can still touch it directly. Water can touch the screen but not get inside the device or touch any of the plugs.

LifeProof also has two straps that seem perfect for a nurse or doctor. One fits diagonally across the back of the iPad and the other is a shoulder strap.

The Joy Factory

C-clamp Mount from The Joy Factory

This company also had a great case and an awesome accessory. To illustrate how strong the case is, people were shooting bean bags at it. If a dangling device suffered a direct hit, it splashed down into the tank beneath. Cool factor? The aXtion pro case floats. The case goes on sale in April.

The company also makes BubbleShield bags with a big ring at the top. They’re like stylish Ziploc bags for your iPhone — perfect for those days when you are canoeing down the river.

The accessory is a wheelchair mount for iPads and other tablets. The arm attaches with a C-clamp designed to fit around a tube or other curved surface. The tablet snaps into the protective hard-shell tray, which in turn screws to the mounting brackets. A magnet connects the tablet to the arm of the mount.

Barry Lieberman of Joy Factory said the company donated some of the mounts to soldiers at a VA hospital in Texas and that scientists in the spinal research lab at the University of California Irvine were using the mounts as well.

Joy Factory was recognized at the show as a 2013 Design and Engineering Awards honoree.

Nanotech protection

If you want an invisible cloak of protection, I found two options: one is available now, the other is still coming to America. For readers everywhere else in the world, you’re in luck.

Liquipel is the one you can get now. You can buy a device treated with this self-sealing
nanocoating that protects your phone if it falls into water. The entire phone — guts and all — is coated, so no more rice treatments if your phone falls into the toilet. Currently, you can buy Asus, Samsung, Motorola and HTC products as well as Apples.

DryWired is also a nanocoating, but it protects against bacteria and corrosion as well as water. The treatment has been applied to printed circuit boards, cellphones, tablets, medical electronics, aircraft foam, plastics and cloth without changing the look or feel of the product. That was the “oooo” demonstration at the booth: “Here, touch this tissue, feels normal, right? But look, it doesn’t disintegrate in water.”

DryWired licenses the technology from EuroPlamsa, a Belgian company. The Los Angeles company is working with manufacturers to get electronics and other components treated with the coating right in the factory.