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Computer Hardware all of the physical components of a

computer.

Computer hardware advances during the late 1900s have

made possible many changes to the health care industry.

The first operations to be modified were special

administrative functions such as finance, payroll, billing, andnurse staffing and scheduling support.

Later, the computer allowed fantastic changes in the practice

of radiology and imaging, allowing noninvasive visualizationof the human body that heretofore could only be performed in

surgery.

Computers are now pervasive throughout the health care

industry.

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Their applications are expected to continue to expand and

thereby improve the quality of health care while at the same time

reducing some costs.

Most important, the application of computers to health care will

greatly expand the diagnostic and therapeutic abilities of

practitioners and broaden the options available to recipients ofhealth care.

Additionally, telemedicine is now being used to reduce the

impact of distance and location on accessibility and availability of

health care.

None of these changes could have happened without

tremendous advances in machinery, the hardware, of computers.

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Computer Hardware Fundamentals

Central Processing Unit

Memory

- Read Only Memory

- Random Access Memory

Input and Output

- Input Devices Commonly used examples in nursing

workstations include touch screen, light pen, voice and

scanner. A touch screen is actually both input and output

device combined. Electronics allow the computer to

sense when a particular part of the screen is pressed or

touch.

- Output Devices

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Touch Screen Device

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ALight Pen is attached to the computer that has specialsoftware that allows the computer to sense when the light penis focused on a particular part of the screen.

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Voice system allows nurses to speak into a microphone torecord data. Many other input devices exist.

Voicecom Hospital Badge

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Some finger prints, retinal prints, voiceprints, or other personally unique physicalcharacteristics that identify users who have clearance to the system. In health carecomputing, some medical devices serves as input devices, for example, theelectrodes placed on patients body provide input into the computerized physiologicmonitors.

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Storage Media- Hard Drive- Diskettes- CD-ROM- USB Disk

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Classes ofComputers

Analog Computer operates on continuous physical orelectrical magnitudes, measuring ongoing continuous analogquantities such as voltage, current, temperature, andpressure. Selected physiologic monitoring equipment, whichaccepts continuous input/output signals, is in the analog classof computers. An example of these machines in the clinicalsetting includes heart monitors and fetal monitors. An analogcomputer handles data in continuously variable quantities

rather than breaking the data down into discrete digitalrepresentations.

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Heart Monitor

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Digital Computer The digital computer, on the other hand,operates in discrete discontinuous numerical digits using the

binary numbering system. It represents data using discretevalues for all data. Its data are represented by numbers,letters and symbols rather than by waveforms such as on aheart monitor. Most of the computers used in the health careindustry for charting and decision support are digitalcomputers.

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Hybrid Computer The hybrid computer, as its name

implies, contains features of both the analog and the digitalcomputer. It is used for specific applications, such as complexsignal processing and other engineering orientedapplications. It is also found in some monitoring equipmentthat converts analog signals to digital ones for data

processing. For example, physiologic monitors that are able tocapture the heart waveform and also to measure the corebody temperature at specific times of the shift are actuallyhybrid computers. Some physiologic research providers can

make use of hybrid computers that have analog ability tocapture waveforms of physiologic monitors and convert theminto digital format suitable for analysis.

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Types ofComputers

Supercomputers- largest type of computer- number cruncher

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