One day after US Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald called the Palo Alto Veterans Administration hospital one of the "crown jewels" of the VA healthcare system," the facility received a visit from Apple CEO Tim Cook, who tweeted that he was "honored" to meet doctors alongside California legislator Anna Eshoo, noting that the facility is "now using iPads to help treat vets and families." The message was accompanied by a photo of Cook with an iPad-using staffer.
Secretary McDonald is on a nationwide tour of VA hospitals in an effort to shore up improvements and support for the facilities, which have come under fire for sub-par care in some cases, and suffered funding cuts by the Republican-led House. Apple has pushed the iPad to the medical industry since its inception, where it has found strong support with doctors, nurses and medical staffers as something of a successor to the Newton, which was also embraced by the medical community in its day. As before, a large selection of industry-oriented apps and accessory support has helped the iPad become by far the dominant tablet used in the medical profession.
McDonald called the Palo Alto facility "one of the crown jewels of [the VA] healthcare system. Every day, great care is delivered to veterans in every facility nationwide, but it's especially evident here in Palo Alto." It's unclear if the hospital also uses non-iOS tablets as well, or how widely iPads have been adopted across the VA system thus far, but the endorsement of the facility from the head of the VA and America's most successful CEO is likely to shine a light on the need for modernization.
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