Using Xbox 360s in Hospitals

We’ve already heard about some less-than-typical use cases for the Xbox 360 when New York state announced they would test the units for use as emergency alert systems. Now, here comes another bold idea: Xbox as a tool to feed medical records to in-room displays. Microsoft Researchers are looking into the devices’ potential for use in this area, with senior researcher Desney Tan leading the way. The gaming machines could be used by patients for entertainment purposes (as they already are sometimes today), but they could also be used in lieu of PCs when doctors needed to access the medical records of the patient. Imagine: the doctor walks in the room and pulls up a patient’s scans using the Xbox 360! The benefit to using the Xbox instead of a PC is primarily cost – at $199 per unit, the machine is cheaper than a netbook and definitely cheaper than a standard PC such those used in hospitals and doctors offices today.