A tablet computer application for patients to participate in their hospital care

Building on our institution's commercial electronic health record and custom personal health record Web portal, we developed a tablet computer application to provide interactive information to hospital patients. Using Apple iPad devices, the prototype application was provided to five patients in a cardiology step-down unit. We conducted detailed interviews to assess patients' knowledge of their inpatient care, as well as their perceptions of the usefulness of the application. While patients exhibited varying levels of comfort with using the tablet computer, they were highly enthusiastic about the application's ability to supply health information such as their inpatient medication histories and photographs of their care providers. Additional research is warranted to assess the benefit such applications may have for addressing inpatient information needs, enhancing patient-provider communication and improving patient satisfaction.