A tech lesson at the local hospital ER

So yesterday I checked myself into the hospital emergency ward with chest pains. Long story and everything seems to be fine. What was more interesting was how the attending physician relied on his wireless-enabled tablet computer to go about his work.

This late 30-something doc obviously was a lot hipper about technology than many of his Pepsi Generation colleagues. (He had a personal digital assistant hanging from one side of his belt and a cell phone on the other.) Still, it was odd to watch a physician tapping away at a computer screen as he scribbled down my answers.

O.K., I obviously don’t get out enough – especially when it comes to visiting the local ER -- but the medical establishment isn’t famous for being chockablock with early tech adopters. When I lived back east, my physician’s idea of high-technology was an IBM Selectric typewriter. I used to kid him about living in the Stone Age. He would laugh about how he was content to remain an old fart and then bang my knee even harder.

But a newer crop of doctors does not need great prodding to realize they can use this stuff to their advantage.

“I save a lot of time,” my attending physician said and then proceeded to demo how his computer could share data with the hospital’s legacy mainframe. “In the past, I would have to go back and transcribe my notes for the legacy system. It was twice the work.”

Chalk it up to a generational shift. Four years ago CNET News.com examined how the medical community used Web technologies in its business. Only 8 percent of physicians surveyed by the American Medical Association at the time said they used the Web to process their health insurance claims.

"The resistance is not resistance to EDI or the Internet," MedUnite's David Cox said at the time. "It is just that physicians don't yet see any advantages over what they were doing before--that's the big hang-up."

A colleague here told me how her pediatrician adores his PDA and can send over scrips to the pharmacy system while patients are sitting there. (Of course, the pharmacy folks don't know how to use the computer system and they end up having to fax something anyway. But thatÂ’s another story.)

PS: A gadget side note - It's not just tablets and PDAs; some doctors are even using iPods for data storage.