April 08, 2008
Growing up a music lover, I’ve marveled over the past 4o years at the technological advancement of music delivery.
- Stereo headphones
- Car stereos (FM radio!, 8-tracks, cassettes )
- Portable cassette tape players
- The Sony Walkman
- CD players
- Computers & the digital music distribution revolution
There have been hundreds maybe thousands of small advancements culminating in what I consider the most amazing invention in music delivery: iTunes & the iPod. Maybe I’m easy to impress, but the ease of use and portability of the technology is something to behold. I’ve got iTunes loaded on all by computers. My song library is broken down into convenient playlists and the entire thing can be synchronized on an electronic device that fits in a shirt pocket. I received an email that the iPod Shuffle is now available for $49 and a 2GB version is available for $69. I can store approximately 600 songs or 48 hours of music on my ‘old’ nano (I got it for Christmas, 2006). The iPod plugs into my computer and can access iStore is seconds. The web portal knows what I’ve bought and tells me about things I might like. Accessing anything from music to books on tape or a preachers sermon are fast, cheap (even free) and very simple. I’ve had 70 year-olds explain the fine points of iTunes to me. The technology is advancing by leaps and bounds; every year memory is cheaper the devices are more advanced and there are dozens of companies that make accessories.
Contrast this to the latest visit to my doctors’ office. My doctor met me with a file folder in his hand, wrote down the information with a pen and when he was done, wrote me a prescription on a small slip of paper. His office has three ‘office managers’ whose job it is to file the folders, track the billing, phone the insurance companies, talk with the army of pharmacy reps and perform dozens of other tasks that are one or two steps away from providing medical care. And despite all this office help, they cannot fax my prescriptions.
Back to my iTunes; my office has a policy of no music downloads on the company PC. They do allow me to download the iTunes application to my PC but I must have my own storage device for the songs. To accomplish this I bought a 4GB thumb drive for around $27. I point the application to the thumb drive and presto, portable music library. Stick it in my pocket and I can listen to it anywhere there’s a computer with iTunes and a USB port.
Back to my Doctor’s office; where are my medical files? Truly, who knows. Spread out in multiple locations, I have no idea how to access my medical history. If my Doctors office has a fire..well, let’s hope he has a copy somewhere.
So how come I don’t have iMed my own portable medical application? Imagine the possibilities:
- Standardization of medical files.
- Ease of filing insurance claims.
- Transportation of medical history.
- Applications to search for cheaper prescriptions.
- Applications to suggest alternative treatments.
- Applications that list provider costs.
- Links to Web MD or other medical information providers.
I can’t be the first person to think of this. If Apple makes a fortune selling songs for .99 cents, wouldn’t someone make a fortune charging a small transaction fee to transmit all this data? I know I’d pay for an iMed and put it to good use.
If only.
