Laptops in Hospital – 2
I put a post on this earlier and today as I travelled to try to see the eclipse, I got talking to a lady who happened to be a hospital physio working with stroke patients. I asked her whether they allowed patients to have laptops and she said they did to a certain extent. But they were always worried that they’d get stolen.
The latter may be true, but if hospitals have a crime problem, it should not be allowed to get in the way of patients’ care and well-being, Iit should also be properly solved.
I also think that most patients would also accept having the coputer in hospital at their own risk. I certainly would and would make sure it was a rather elderly but reliable machine.
Laptops in Hospital
In a previous post, some of the comments were about smart phones in hospitals.
I’m all for allowing patients to have laptops in hospital. I had my stroke in Hong Kong and I was allowed one there. It allowed me to do things like listen to Radio 5, talk on Skype, do the Sudokus in The Times and send e-mails, that I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.
I could also have done things like watch videos, which I never do anyway.
In Addenbrooke’s laptops were effectively banned and I don’t think it helped me.
The reason they are banned is that if they were allowed, it would mean they’d lose all that money they get from that crap Patientline system. The bandwidth wouldn’t be a problem, as they can now get enough Megabits easily.
The laptops could also be integrated into patient care and support. For instance, a physio in Hong Kong told me that typing would help my hands work properly again. She was right!
So let’s have some 21st century, healthcare thinking!
Remember too, that happy patients are less trouble for staff and might even leave earlier.
To me allowing laptops in hospital is a no-brainer. But then what do I know about healthcare? But I have seen good healthcare at work and know what works.
I am also in contact with universities, where they are developing computer games to help stroke patients. Let’s make those free and downloadable!
Stroke-Friendly Keyboard
I know it will get better with practice, but my typing annoys me!
I usually hit the right key, or one that a spell-checker will correct, but it is the caps lock, shift and control keys that are the problem. For example :-
- I sometimes hit the caps lock instead of shift and get everything in caps. That is very rude in an e-mail and one has to have standards doesn’t one!
- I do a lot of shift characters by using two fingers of the right hand, rather than shift with the left hand and and the character with the right. But thinking back, I’ve always done this to a certain extent, but really I shouldn’t as it’s ignoring getting the left hand back in good form.
- I sometimes, hold the shift down with my left hand and not release it for the next characters. So I end up having to retype a whole phrase or sentence.
- But the major problem is that as the control and shift are so close together, I sometimes use control instead of shift. As control with a character has a meaning in most programs like Word or Internet Explorer,I tend to get in a mess, with all sorts of unwanted actions being carried out.
These problems are caused because the keys are so close together on my laptop, but even on a 2005-vintage Dell keyboard, I get the same problems.
I thought about disabling the control stroke, but that would mean I couldn’t use control-C and control-V for cut and paste. Old habits die hard.
How about the shift, control and old keys being something like piano keys on the edge of the keyboard.
Has anybody got a better solution?
What Did I Forget?
I always forget something. But then I always used to do this, when my late wife was alive, but now there’s only one of me to remember, what to take.
For a start I left, the power unit for my laptop in the hotel. It’ll be interesting to see if they find it and return it to me.
But I did forget a couple of things for my lunch; some tomatoes and a serviette or large handkerchief.
Perhaps I should make a list for travelling!
The Anonymous Widower 