Looking back at the 1990s and seeing how computers were established in the clinical environment is an interesting story of the adoption of technology.

IBM 7690 (1991)


The IBM 7690 is a clinical computer that folds into itself.  It was designed for mounting on a wall.  

Strangely, there is little information on the internet about this product.  
There is a PubMed abstract on this computer:  
Witkowski JA. Microcomputers in nursing practice: IBM 7690 clinical workstation, Part I. J Pediatr Nurs. 1992 Apr;7(2):147-8.

Tablets

The first hospital based Tablet I saw was the Zenith CruisePad -- it basically was a remote client as you required a Windows NT server to serve up the applications.

Zenith Data Systems CruisePad
Thin Client, Windows 3.1, (1995)

Thin Clients

Thin clients then came along -- and this was another way to serve up applications from a more powerful server class machines.  

Thin clients also allowed more control of the desktop environment in terms of viruses and non-approved applications (and even usb keys)

Virtual Desktop, 1280x1024 (1999)

Computers on Wheels (COW)

HP NeoWare e370 Thin Client / eFusion Cart
17 inch, Windows XP Embedded, 1ghz, 512mb flash memory (2006)

Bonus - Light Pens

The old TDS 7000 Oscar system at the Foothills Medical Centre (FMC) used light pens instead of mice.  Light pens only work with CRT monitors -- so since the world has gone to LCD screens they are no longer in use. 

Shiny is a web front-end application for R that is part of RStudio.  Shiny is licensed at $9,999/year through RStudio.

http://rstudio.github.io/shiny/tutorial/#welcome

I've been playing with it the last few days and its okay -- I think it is based on some TCL/TK as thats how you set up the webpage -- through a structure like it. 

My first application was to query PubMed and then have t report on the various aspects of it -- such as publication year, journal, authors, etc.

I have not figured out how the inputs work (checkbox, slider, etc).  The documentation explains simple uses of it -- but does not solve my unique use-case.

How does this compare to WebReports:

• I like the input parameters alot better in WebReports than in Shiny.
• Shiny has the ability to dynamically change content without refreshing the webpage.
• WebReports has the ability to email and print reports while Shiny does not.
• WebReports R was developed in 2007.. so 7 years we can adopt technology from back then. 
• Shiny is free (non-password version) -- WebReports is unknown.

Dean.

Having conducted several surveys I've really thought about what kind of system I would like to have.  

We use RedCap for all of our survey data collection and then export the data as a CSV file and import it into R.  

What I sometimes find is that the data collected is not in the best format for the type of analysis or presentation that I would like.  

What I would like to develop is an interactive Survey Form creator, like RedCap, however have the R statistical code generated right away and the ability to simulate data from within the application.  This way I could then quickly format my tables and analysis and see what the output would look like immediately.

This may be my next "test" project.

R code for Licket Scale: 
http://www.r-bloggers.com/visualizing-likert-items-3/