With the iPad, you can use any Allscripts EHR solution via Citrix or even RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol). While it’s nice to be able to access the full software application on the iPad, it might be easier if there there were an application developed specifically for the iPad. As you may have seen at ACE 2010 in Las Vegas, Allscripts is also working on their own iPad App for a more fluid user experience. Codenamed Project Wombat, the Allscripts iPad Application is designed exactly the way you would expect an iPad app to look. Clean, simple, intuitive. We’ll have to wait a little while until it comes out, so while we’re waiting, it might not hurt to configure your iPad to access your full EHR application.
Today we set up our Allscripts Enterprise v11.1.7 Environment to allow for access by an iPad. By downloading an App called “Citrix Receiver” and making some changes to our Citrix environment, we were successfully able to use Enterprise from the iPad. In my experience, Enterprise EHR works very much like you would expect it to, except on a super-light, easy to use device. There are downsides though, one being that the iPad does not have the processing power to run Dragon Medically Speaking. That means that if you choose not to use a v11 form, you’re stuck with a keyboard. The soft keyboard takes up far too much real estate, so if I were to use this regularly to access the EHR, I would certainly invest in a hard keyboard docking station. See the video below:
am interested on what adjustments you made on your citrix environment to make this work? thanks
Citrix has all of the info on their site. I googled for it. It involves setting up a new Program Neighborhood Agent site on your web interface. The rest depends on what type of access you use… Access Gateway, Secure Gateway, Direct to the Web interface, etc. I was able to google all the info needed to set it up in our environment.
I was not successful in finding actual references to how to make Allscripts work on iPad. Were you using Cirix Receiver, or just using browser on iPad?
I use iTap RDP (an app available in the App Store). I use the app to ‘take over’ my Fujitsu laptop by entering it’s IP address into the setup section. It asks you to make some choices on screen orientation (I prefer landscape). When you select the app, it logs onto the laptop and you log in just like you normally would. It works fairly well, but a dedicated iPad app would be greatly appreciated. The iPad can revolutionize mobile healthcare, and I’ve frankly been stunned at the slow pace of Healthcare IT in adopting it. I use it for rounds in the hospital as well, merging my documents into the hospital’s very rudimentary EHR. I hope desk-bound Healthcare IT can soon understand the usefulness of this device for care providers who must work in multiple floors of multiple facilities each day…
I have a client who is desperate to try the iPad app in their office. I wish there was some way to sign up for a beta release.
Not only is the iPad lighter and has a 10 hour battery life. I can get 3 of them for the cost of the laptop I must buy through the system to use Allscripts. These seem like huge incentives from the business end. So why is it moving so slow? And why does it seem that every Allscripts implementation uses (overpriced) Fujitsu laptops?