Like most of us, I get so caught up in day-to-day job challenges that it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture, and I got a reminder of that bigger picture recently while watching a favorite medical drama. There in state-of-the-art, make-believe operating theater was an actor using a touch-panel display that looked awfully familiar.
The equipment appeared only briefly on my living-room TV, but the touch-screen playing that critical supporting role might very well have been one of Advantech’s large medical display consoles staged in performance of the same functions Advantech systems play every day in real-life medical applications from Beijing, China to Contamine sur Arve, France.
It was nice to be reminded that the cutting-edge equipment deployed by our customers not only improves lives in more typical industrial settings, but it even plays direct, real-time roles in saving lives. I use terms like “human-machine interface” so frequently in my daily work that it’s easy to forget that the “human” side of that term is represented by real people, doing real work. Funny that it took a fictional TV show to remind me of that. Whether a touch-panel display is being actively used to save lives, or simply to make life more productive and enjoyable for those who use it, real people are benefiting from this technology.
Sure, my favorite medical drama is make-believe, but the equipment used on its surgical set is real enough and is deployed daily in saving real lives. And that’s a big picture I’m proud to be part of.