>>>and this maps perfectly with the IT/web evolution
>
>My first computer in the early 1980s had a silicon chip, a keyboard and a screen. 35 years later my computer has a silicon chip, a keyboard and a screen- and a mouse. IOW there's been no real change there at all. Web is just another way of showing stuff on a screen with keyboard and mouse interaction. Mobile devices are cool, but in the end they also have silicon chips, keyboards, screens and mouse analogs. So in effect there's no keyhole surgery yet and we're still doing laparotomies to remove gallbladders except that we have different sorts of scalpels of which we are very proud.

Agreed.

Having spent a bit of time going to doctors over the past few years, what I see is a need for apps that don't have a UI. The BP cuff should transmit to the EMR, and anything needed to be noticed should pop up on the staff person's "tricorder," as a card. Likewise for other instrumentation (much of which I see, on GizMag, is under development). My pillbox, which should be how I receive my prescriptions, should indicate when I've missed any meds, plopping that in my EMR. And when I've taken my BP at home, likewise, etc. My phone, which like any smartphone is capable of measuring movement as well as a fitbit etc., should show my activity levels in my EMR. If I am tracking a symptom, I should be able to simply talk into the phone -- "note to EMR: that t4-t5 issue is acting up today, probably because yesterday I took out that sapling stump that threatened the health of my lawnmower. Pain seems closer to the spine today, rather than radiating through my left shoulder-blade."

Mobiles are already going this way: no app UI, just a card that shows the results. When you want to place a call, you speak into the phone. It works! (The first time it worked, I got much the same thrill as I did some 58 years ago when I made my first voice transmission as a radio amateur -- K1CTO.)

One of our next apps is likely to be for doing a physical inventory in stores. I envisage a card with the last product scanned, and maybe a button to show a scrollable list of what's been inventoried so far (but I doubt this will be used much). Clicking the usb scanner button will be the main application interface. One of the other apps in the hopper is a belt-worn ticket printer: click the scanner button and the ticket will pop out.

The fact is, the more we get out of the UI business, the happier are our customers.

There will still be a need to define products and skus for products and locations for skus. But for that we are already, in VFP, moving to wizards, in order to deal with the complexity (we handle every known variation, for every known product type, for retail environments, food & beverage, and supplies). These will move quite easily to mobile. Which is a good thing, because our browser apps, which is to say our desktop apps, in the near future will be android apps running in the ChromeOS extension in the main 3 browsers.

Hank