Sometimes when I'm describing how physicians are using tablet PCs to revolutionize the practice of medicine, I'm told that it sounds like science fiction.

I've often thought that "Star Trek's" futuristic physician, Dr. "Bones" McCoy, would have looked quite at home tapping a stylus on a tablet PC, pulling up medical records from afar, prescribing medications that are transmitted wirelessly to the pharmacist, and using the device to show the patient a video of the exploratory procedure that had just been performed.

Physicians are doing these and much more using this emerging technology for reasons core to their practice: improving patient outcomes and creating cost-saving efficiencies for practice management.

Even traditionalists who extol the virtues of writing on paper are being won over by the value of tablet PCs — partly because the new notebooks capture so much of the natural simplicity of pen and paper.

Here's why tablets are so popular and what you should look for when making a purchase decision.

A natural evolution

With the emergence of handheld wireless devices such as the Palm Pilot, and later the pocket PC, physicians could access information anytime, from anywhere. But the small screen sizes and lack of processing power placed a limit on how much information could be displayed at one time.

A tablet PC provides wireless access to data whenever and wherever it's needed — and it has a screen size that approximates a piece of paper. 

Although the tablet PC is being used with custom applications by different industries around the world, it seems especially perfect for medicine because its design mimics the patient chart physicians have been jotting their notes in for years.

If you haven't yet seen one, the tablet PC gets its name because it resembles an electronic tablet, something that can be held in one hand, like a clipboard, as you write on its screen with your other hand using a pen-like device called a stylus.

Tablets come in a super-slim version — referred to as a "slate" —that doesn't have a keyboard (though an auxiliary one can be plugged in). It also comes in a "convertible" model that includes a keyboard and the stylus.

These notebooks look simple, but they contain incredible computing horsepower on the hardware side, and often have the Microsoft Windows(r) XP Tablet PC Edition operating system (a superset of Windows XP Professional) on the software side — which can either translate your handwritten notes to text instantly, or save your handwritten notes as "digital ink" files. Tablet PCs also can include voice recognition software so you can dictate to the machine and see your words appear as text, or digitally record your voice for wireless transfer to a transcription service.

Because all tablet PCs include support for wireless communication, you can seamlessly connect with your desktop machine, private practice servers, or with a medical center's electronic medical records (EMR) system — using built-in security to protect patient privacy and data integrity.

The ability to input information with your stylus, keyboard, mouse, or through voice recognition helps you work in ways that best fit your environment and personal preferences while capturing detailed patient information. You can seamlessly access the patient's complete medical record and a world of medical references on the device, as well as search the Internet for research and other information.

Better than paper or laptop