I want to advocate for laptops in the rooms, with wireless connection.
The slowdown caused by wireless is almost unnoticeable, though sometime I put the laptop on the base and run it wired.
Being able to move around in the exam room and not being tied to a large piece of hardware is important in my practice -- sometimes I like to sit next to patients, sometimes across from them, and sometimes there is a whole family in the room, that requires creative seating.
I use a Lenovo x201tablet. Old piece of equipment bought off EBay -- I have three of them. Zero problems. The nurses use x201's (not tablets) -- also bought off EBay -- also Zero problems. I have an X230 Tablet at home that I also take on the road. Also Zero problem.
The benefit of a tablet is that you can use a stylus as a pointer-- often easier than the trackpoint (can't really use a mouse the way I move around and sit in different places) and you can mark up UpDox faxes from nursing home and pharmacies, etc. with the stylus, as you would a paper fax. Pharmacies and Home Health accept the handwritten signature, where they won't allow a signature image -- they call that a "stamp".
Dragon works well on the tablets - you just have to learn how to use it.
We have a server-based system, but I'm sure a regular desktop would work as well -- as it did for quite a while before I put the server together.
I have no experience with the cloud -- but anything in the cloud is scary to me. Internet not always reliable, someone else has the data files, and how do you access all those image files in "imported items" in the cloud? With our internet speeds, we would wait all day for x-ray and lab and consultant letters and whatnot to download. And uploading them would be worse.
