Mersey beat: Surface jazzes up healthcare computing
What’s the connection between a 1980s game and some of the most exciting IT developments in a generation? It’s Microsoft’s Surface Computing – and it promises big advantages for healthcare professionals. You can see Surface in action at the NHS Confederation’s annual conference this week, but Nick Saalfeld got a sneak peek…
If you were lucky enough to be born in the late 1960s, you might have spent some of your late teenage years lounging in a certain kind of pub. The kind that had a Space Invaders machine, mounted not in a cabinet, but masquerading as a table.
“To work with the Surface, you need nothing more sophisticated than your hands.”
This made Space Invaders a social game in a way that hasn’t been seen since. Two opponents were pitted against each other, with friends crowded round; and trigger fingers jostled with half-filled glasses for space on the table-top.
A quarter of a century on, and the idea of making the computer more social is back again – only this time, the computers are massively more powerful, and the applications much more important.
The most natural user experience in a PC
Microsoft Surface brings the table-top concept right up to date. Surface is a standard Microsoft Vista PC augmented with a stunning table-top display, a clever touch-sensitive interface, and a specially mounted concoction of cameras that allow it to ‘understand’ gestures and usage patterns.
Nick Umney, lead technology specialist, health and education, Microsoft UK, says: “Surface is physically very different. It means we can use the power of computing in very different scenarios.
“Originally, we had the text-based green screen. Then we had the graphical user interface – the mouse and cursor we’re used to today – which is friendlier but still based entirely around the individual. With Surface, we’re moving to a multi-user interface; applications can be presented to anybody sitting or standing at the device.”
This fundamentally changes the way computers can be used. Consider, for example, a complaint often levelled at GPs and other time-starved healthcare professionals - that they spend too much time looking at a screen, and not enough time looking at their patient.
“Sitting at the Surface, a doctor could share highly visual documents – for example an X-Ray or scan – with a patient, who would feel more involved and included in the discussion. “Another typical application is medical education”, says Mr Umney. “A group of medical students will be able to interact with diagrams, notes and other documents all at the same time.”
Point and drag: everything at your fingertips
Surface holds even more surprises. To work with the Surface, you need nothing more sophisticated than your hands. Use a finger to drag, point, expand and wipe; all completely natural and instinctive gestures which even somebody with absolutely no prior PC awareness or training will find easy.
Again, this translates very favourably to healthcare applications, whose targets are often the least computer-savvy groups in society (for example, the elderly).
As an example, Umney explains one of Surface’s secrets: “Surface’s software includes the ability to recognise the shape made by a finger as it touches the screen. That way, even if four people are all working on the Surface at once, it can tell who has made a particular gesture. So, for example, when somebody opens a document, it will automatically open facing the right person.”
Surface is happy with old technologies – like paper
Surface’s next party piece is to interact seamlessly with the physical world. Because the foundation of Surface is a standard PC, it has all the usual connections you’d expect (wi-fi, Bluetooth and infra-red, for example). However, all these techniques require some sort of technical set-up or ‘pairing’.
To bypass that complexity, the Surface screen has been built to ‘read’. “Surface recognises Tags, which are rather like 3D barcodes”, says Mr Umney. “Tags can be printed easily on anything – a letter, leaflet, smartcard or token; and are instantly recognised by the system.
“This opens up a world of interactive possibilities. For example, a doctor could simply drop his ID card onto the Surface and gain access to appropriate hospital network facilities.
“Similarly, a patient could receive a letter inviting him to an appointment with a Tag included at the bottom of the letter. Just by putting the letter onto the Surface, he or she can be presented with tailored directions around the hospital, and even real-time information (‘don’t rush – Mr Jones’ list is running a few minutes late today’.)”
Care ahead of cure
At the moment, Surface is in its early incubation, and it will be a few months before it will be available to organisations such as trusts. However, application specialists are already working on software that will benefit healthcare professionals; and Microsoft will be giving a first-glimpse demo of the sorts of things that Surface will make possible at the NHS Confederation conference this week (10-12 June 2009).
Mr Umney cites HealthVault as an example. “HealthVault is Microsoft’s application for maximising the value of information held about a patient; by making it useful in their daily lives,” he says. “The principle of HealthVault is that information on a patient should not be a passive store, but a force for their wellbeing.
“During a consultation, a prescription can be visually ‘dropped’ into the patient’s HealthVault, and referred to later on. Equally, doctor and patient could construct an exercise regime, which is also dropped into the HealthVault. The patient can then pick it up online, and even receive messages of encouragement by email.”
User-friendly technology like Surface makes these interactions non-threatening and even fun. That means clinicians can stop being the last line of defence and become proactive in helping people to look after their own health and welfare.
The technical stuff
A host of technologies have come together to make Surface possible. Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Microsoft Expression are the software engines which support the intuitive, colourful and media-rich interfaces that make Surface so easy to use. XMA, a graphics component, makes rendering the visuals possible.
Yet you can forget all that jargon because all of these tools are compatible with a standard modern PC. And that’s the point: Surface is a delight to use, but is fundamentally a PC underneath. That means it fits in with your existing IT maintenance regime, and won’t displace your existing IT investments. Similarly, today’s less visually stunning applications will still work perfectly well on a Surface device.
“One of Surface’s party pieces is to interact seamlessly with the physical world.”
Surface truly represents a paradigm shift in the way computers can be used, because unlike most giant leaps (memory, speed and processing power), Surface is all about how a computer looks, feels, and fits into the lives of its users.
At a time when technology is all too often seen as being an adjunct to healthcare, rather than at its core, Surface is just one of the ways in which the power of computing can be harnessed without sacrificing the essential human touch.