Take a Look at This - Buyers Guide

Health Management Technology, August, 2001

Who's not interested in monitors and displays? If every healthcare professional uses data and information, then by necessity, every healthcare professional cares about how that information looks and reads to the human eye.

During the past few years, the proliferation of the displays and monitors in the healthcare arena has been dramatic. Today's healthcare professionals can choose from the desktop cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor, flat panel screens-liquid crystal display's (LCDs), stereoscopic 3-D panels and touch screen monitors. Here's a taste of what today's technology offers.

Elo

Elo Touch Systems offers a complete line of touchscreens in a range of types and sizes. The company's IntelliTouch touchscreens can be installed on CRTs that are flat, cylindrical and spherical, or on display's based on electroluminescent (EL), LCDs and gas plasma technologies. Many sizes are available, from large curved units for over-sized monitors to small, flat touchscreens built to fit compact point-of-sale displays.

IntelliTouch touchscreens deliver high image clarity and durability. They are constructed solely of glass, with no need for plastic layers or special CRT bezels. With nothing but .glass between the user and the image on the screen, surface wave touchscreens offer enhanced clarity and durability. www.elotouch.com

Dome

Dome Imaging Systems, Inc., a manufacturer of high-performance, high-resolution display controllers now offers the CX line, a 3-megapixel, flat-panel display system in both grayscale and color options. An important feature of the CX product line is its all-digital design, which maintains digital data throughout the entire display chain, eliminating unwanted image artifacts and providing a crisp, clear display that is critical to softcopy medical viewing. The systems come in a 20.8-inch diagonal screen size with a display resolution of 1,536 x 2,048 pixels (portrait) or 2,048 x 1,536 (landscape). The CX line provides exceptional contrast ratios, high luminance and consistent image display over time. www.domeimaging.com

Hewlett Packard

Hewlett-Packard just recently added two new performance-line monitors to its array of products. These monitors are among the first to incorporate Sony's latest FD Trinitron display technology with an LCD monitor, resulting in a flat screen with superior image quality, sharp text and color uniformity across the entire display area. This minimizes distortion and reduces reflective glare. The HP P1110 21-inch monitor delivers a 19.8-inch viewable image, superfine 0.25 mm stripe pitch and a recommended resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 at 85Hz (maximum resolution of 1,800 x 1,440 at 80Hz). The HP P910 19-inch monitor delivers an 18-inch viewable image, superfine 0.25mm stripe pitch and a recommended resolution of 1,280 x 1,024 at 85Hz (maximum resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 at 80Hz). www.hp.com

IBM

IBM has recently introduced one of the highest resolution flat panel displays currently available. The T220, with 200 pixels per inch and more than 9 million pixels in total on its 22.2-inch screen, the shows 12 times more detail than comparable units. IBM also carries a complete line of TFT-LCD flat panel and CRT monitors. The IBM T Series of flat panel monitors range from 15 inches to 20.8 inches and now to 22.2 inches, and the E, G and P Series of CRT monitors offer entry, general and professional monitors ranging in sizes up to 21 inches. These systems can be utilized in a range of applications from basic word processing and spread sheets to advanced graphic applications such as CAD/CAM, digital content creation, video editing and medical and scientific imaging. www.ibm.com

Kyocera

Kyocera manufactures a complete line of LCD products. With sizes from 2.5-inch to 10.4-inch diagonal and formats from 1/8 VGA to SVGA Kyocera has an extensive STN transflective product line and also offers a wide temperature (120 to 70C) in all transmissive and transflective products. Passive matrix LCDs do not reduce the light transmitting area with transistor structures, so there is more space for both reflective and transmissive elements within each subpixel of transflective color displays. They reflect the sunlight in the day and at night the CFL backlight shines through, producing readable color. www.kyocera.com

Philips

Philips Electronics has a full complement of screens and monitors, including its newest addition--the Brilliance 420P, a 42-inch flat display monitor with a VGA connector that supports VGA, SVGA and XGA display resolutions. In XGA mode this monitor provides high-resolution screen displays of 1,024 x 768, using Philips' LIMESCO (line memory scan converter) technology. The monitor also has a video input that enables video and DVD players to be connected for extended functionality. Its sound system utilizes six built-in loudspeakers that provide 2 x 40 Watts of sound. www.philips.com

NEC

NEC Technologies carries a complete line of monitors including the MultiSync[R] P Series. Using CRT technology the MultiSync P Series can used for CAD/CAM, graphic design, desktop publishing, document imaging, pre-press and medical imaging. Two large-screen models are available--the 17-inch MultiSync P750, with a 15.6-inch viewable image size, and the 21-inch MultiSync P1250 with a 19.6-inch viewable image size. The fine 0.28mm grille pitch of the P1250 and the 0.25mm mask pitch of the P750 produce the sharp focus necessary for applications requiring fine detail and precision. The P1250 monitor is an aperture grille CRT, producing bright, sharply focused images in a large screen size, while the CromaClear[R] CRT in the P750 monitor is flat-square technology CRT, which creates images that appear flat, with less distortion than conventional CRTs. www.nec.com