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Apologies for the confusing question title. Read on and you will see what I mean.

I work for a large general hospital. We are attempting to go fully digital.

One of our biggest stumbling blocks is that clinicians sometimes need to make medical illustrations and put them in people's casenote folder. At the moment, they do this and the casenotes go to the other side of the hospital to get scanned. The paper copy is then destroyed.

This creates a tremendous amount of work and is horrendously inefficient. However, it is better than the current alternative, which is getting the clinician to scan the drawing locally. If they do this, we can't rely on them to destroy the paper copy, which is sometimes added to or notes are written on it, creating a clinically dangerous double-entry problem.

Because we're a general hospital, solutions designed for eye specialist, heart specialists and so on will not work. We need something as context-agnostic as a pencil and a piece of paper.

High-quality drawing tablets won't work, because it isn't possible to draw into our medical software. I was thinking about some kind of captive whiteboard under a visualiser, but AFAIK whiteboards are not ever used for precise drawings.

I think the answer is some kind of photograph of a drawing. They can't draw something and scan it in later; it needs to be done in the patient context: i.e., you open the patient's record and then you make the drawing.

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  • "High-quality drawing tablets won't work, because it isn't possible to draw into our medical software." I'm not sure why this is a stumbling block. They're getting the scans into the software somehow. Why should a digital drawing be any different? Just import the drawing image in the same way the scans are imported.
    – 13ruce
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 14:23
  • The software contains a feature for uploading images, but not one for doing drawings like mspaint.
    – Ne Mo
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 15:25
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    But digital drawings ARE images. Why is there a difference between a scan image and a drawing image that would prevent upload?
    – 13ruce
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 16:07
  • If you're talking about a tablet which I can draw on, save on the tablet, and then upload to the computer like from a flash drive, then that could work.
    – Ne Mo
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 16:37
  • Exactly what I'm talking about. You could even avoid the flash drive and upload to secure storage via wifi.
    – 13ruce
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 18:56

1 Answer 1

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Seems a drawing pad is exactly what is needed.

There are writing pads which merely create an image, the same as any scan would. And they are designed to be quick-reference tool far more than high-end, digital art creators.

Wacom's Bambo Slate line seems like it would be a perfect fit. One writes on the pad.. it gets saved as an image, then you transfer all the images to your other software at the end of the day, or as often as necessary. No scanning whatsoever.

enter image description here

There is also the Wacom Clipboard which is designed for business use the way a clipboard would traditionally be used but offers the electronic image features.

Note that Wacom is only one brand. I'm certain there are other's out there. However, for quality it's hard to go wrong with Wacom products.

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  • Thank you for looking at this. Two questions 1) how does it interface with the pc? Can you just drag over the files like a mass storage device? 2) How can I be certain that my doctor's don't draw the picture, upload it, then go away and add more stuff to it, making it different to the one everyone can see?
    – Ne Mo
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 15:30
  • @NeMo Being a designer and not a doctor I use a much higher end tablet designed more for art than merely information. I have zero direct experience with these two product lines. I merely know such items exist. You'll have to explore Wacom's site for your answers. Call their customer service. They are always happy to help. -- And your second question is more an issue regarding business procedural directives.
    – Scott
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 15:43
  • I understand that, just asking these questions so someone can take what you started and build on it further to give us what we need
    – Ne Mo
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 15:52
  • @NeMo StackExchange sites, such as this one, may be unlike sites you are accustomed to. They are not "discussion forums" designed to thread a conversation allowing anyone to chime in. They are direct question<>answer sites. In short, StackExchange sites are designed to not allow others to "build on it further" as you are envisioning. You may however, get additional answers to the original question. By no means am I stating my answer is the only possible solution.
    – Scott
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 15:55
  • That's right, an answer is what I'm after. I'm simply pointing out the issues with this answer so that someone else who answers can take them into account.
    – Ne Mo
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 16:32

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