Would you rather spend a day in the hospital or on an airplane? Given the amenities patients enjoy in today’s high-tech hospitals—and the trials and tribulations of travelers held hostage on the runway without food or water—this perhaps is no longer just a rhetorical question. At least from the perspective of creature comfort, hospitals have become rather pleasant places. Wireless IV systems now allow mobile patients to walk hospital corridors relatively unencumbered. They may even be allowed to congregate in the aisles! And interactive entertainment with video on-demand, interactive television and Internet access as well as video games, make time in the hospital bed fly quickly, and with more legroom than on your average trip overseas. Needless to say, the primary goal of hospital technology is not to show patients a good time. Aside from the marketing bonus it provides in Advanced Technology: Enhancing Patient Experience an increasingly competitive healthcare environment, state-of-the-art medical technology is designed to reduce in-patient and staff cost as well as the risk of medical error.

Just like the ultimate goal of air travel is to get the passenger quickly and safely to his desired destination—with in-flight entertainment only an added bonus—the use of advanced technology in the medical field serves the purpose of getting the patient from the scene of the accident to the emergency room, and ultimately back home as quickly and with as few complications as possible.