Corporate reseller BCA IT is rolling out 450 HP Tablet PCs to Victoria's Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS) in the first stage of a $2 million-dollar deal tipped to herald market acceptance of a formerly controversial technology. A final 450 Tablets will be implemented at RDNS before the end of the year.
Sylvia Vasas, market development manager for commercial notebooks and tablet PCs at HP in Sydney, said the advantage of the HP Tablet PC was its versatility.
Unlike many other tablets on the market, the HP Tablet PC could function as a desktop replacement unit running on Microsoft XP for Tablet PCs and an electronic note-taker using keyboard or stylus, and integrated wireless functionality.
“Formerly, clinical data had to be written down on a form, then entered or scanned into a computer later on. Now it can be done in one step. Nurses can create the forms and referrals on the tablet PC itself,” Vasas said.
She said the deal was “definitely” the largest HP had yet done with tablet PCs, and one of the largest done with tablet PCs in Australia. “We've sold several thousand, but in deals of a few at a time so customers can evaluate them. We hope it's the start of something good.”
Simon Uzunovski, marketing manager at BCA IT in Melbourne, said the deal was the largest tablet PC deal the reseller had done, although the product was being evaluated by several potential customers.
The agreement involves staff from HP and BCA IT's services group and quality assurance section working in tandem to implement the tablets, which were the latest revision of 10 years in sales and service automation at RDNS.
“They started with the Apple Newtons, then moved on to PDAs. And now to HP Tablet PCs,” Uzunovski said.
Ian Cash, general manager of information systems at RDNS, said the tablets would improve client care by enabling more efficient use of resources such as staff time. “You have to think how much time you would save if you didn't have to commute to the office every day. Before, nurses had to come into an office, get their schedule, do the admin and then start visiting clients, and at the end of the day, come back,” he said.
The HP Tablet package incorporates the Microsoft Office suite of applications and pen-computing program Gemino. Nurses will dial up central administration using GSM, although GPRS is being trialed.
“We considered RFPs from six companies. The HP Tablet PC was seen as more user-friendly. A lot of our clients are elderly; if someone comes in, sits down and opens a notebook they say 'what are you doing?' This is just like opening a book. Also, the HP Tablet PC had excellent battery life,” Cash said.