App-tastic!

One of the projects our department is working on is designing a Midwestern University mobile website for smartphones. Midwestern University students will be able to access important MWU information just by pulling their phones out of their pockets and tapping a touchscreen. With just a couple of finger presses, they will be connected nearly instantaneously to what they're looking for.

Put the MWU mobile site together with other healthcare industry mobile sites and apps helpful to particular specialties, such as Epocrates or Medscape, and Midwestern students will be armed with significant tools to make their lives a lot less complicated.

What an amazing world we live in! It's been barely 15 years since the Internet opened up to consumers after largely remaining the province of the military and higher education. The days where one might have to sign up a day or two in advance to reserve an hour of Internet time in a crowded lab to send e-mail or do remote research have been replaced by devices that put the entire world in one's pocket.

The MWU mobile site is just one initiative that is helping to streamline educational processes by making information more convenient. Other mobile apps are in development or testing for such things as student clinical evaluations by preceptors at rotation sites.

This is one of those times where the true meaning of "Educating Tomorrow's Healthcare Team" really hits home. I hope Midwestern students appreciate the commitment and effort the University puts into keeping pace with state-of-the-art tech as much as I do!