On October 4 Apple’s CEO said: “Over 80% of the top hospitals in the US are now testing, or piloting, the iPad.” This statement is a little misleading.

Firstly, he said “testing or piloting.” What is the number of hospitals that are actually buying and deploying iPads to use with their core clinical applications? I bet that number is less than 1%.

What exactly defines a “top hospital in the US?” Are those the ones that answered Apple’s calls? I have an Apple sales executive (Rachelle, who is a super nice woman) that periodically calls on me to keep track of what we are doing. When she last called I toled her we had a pilot taking place to test connecting employee owned devices (including iPads) to our Exchange Server so our employees can get email and appointments.

That’s it, just a pilot. No roll-out. No committment. Furthermore, it is just for Exchange connectivity. Still, I presume this means that our 15 hospitals are in that 80%.

But, the picture behind Cook is two men, with lab coats and stethescopes, staring into an iPad. This might give the world the impression that 80% of the hospitals have doctors and nurses accessing electronic patient records on an iPad.

Not yet.

My organization is not going to deploy the current generation of Windows client applications on iPads, just because they are cool. When core vendors produce native iPad apps (or properly formatted web apps) that will be the right time to look at radical device changes. And don’t talk to me about Citrix. Citrix on the iPad’s relatively tiny screen is a terrible user experience and not worth the cost to make a radical change to our device support model.

I have been writing this blog for 8+ years. This is the first time I recall going completely off topic. I want to talk about baseball. Tonight all of us in Wisconsin are celebrating the Brewers advancing to the National League Championship Series.

There was a play in the top of the 9th inning that drives me crazy. The Diamondbacks had runners at the corners with 2 outs.  The Brewers Betancourt scooped up a slow bouncer and raced to 2nd base, ariving a split second before a sliding Justin Upton.

Why does Upton slide into second base? I would argue that sliding slowed Upton down enough to allow him to be forced out. What if instead, he were to run through 2nd base to avoid the force? Sure he would be tagged out before he could reach 3rd base. But the runner at third would have already crossed the plate before he could be tagged. I am gad that didn’t happen because that run would have likely eliminated the Brewers.

If a runner is forced out for the final out another runner crossing the plate will not score, even if the runner crosses home before the force out. If the runner is tagged out after reaching the base, then it becomes a matter of what happened first – the final out or the runner touching home plate. Because the runner at third usually has a bigger lead, they typically can cross home plate at the same time the force out occurs. Even if Upton were immediately tagged after running through second, the Diamondabacks would have scored the winning run.

Maybe someone will post a comment telling me why I am wrong. Maybe there is a rule that requires the runner to slide. But I think Upton slid because, for over 100 years, every player in the same situation has slid.

Is there something in your IT operation that you do because it has always been done that way? Is there a simple but unconventional change that you can make to get a better results?

Maybe this post wasn’t off topic after all.

Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922)
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931)
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947)
Steven Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)

These people radically changed the lives of every American alive in their lifetime. It was awesome for me.