"Beam me up Scotty".
According to an article on ZDNet.com it would seem that some of Star Treks cool gadgets are making their way to hospitals paving the way to new ways to assist patients more efficiently.
On the article
'Star Trek" communicators free up doctors' time then talk about a new "
Star Trek-like" communications system based on small communicators the staff at a hospital carry that allows them to contact any member in the hospital without having to leave the current location they are at or completely disrupt the current task they are performing to look for a phone or the person.
Pretty neat gadget in my opinion. It actually works like the communicators Sean Luke Picard uses by saying a persons name or their function and voila, instant connection. Nextel eat you heart out. While the gadget does seem a bit big considering the original (but sci-fi) version on the TV show was the size of a charm (during the Next Generation and on series anyways) it has the potential to become somewhat smaller in the future, possible resembling the TV show badge made to look like the Hospitals logo or something.
I look forward to seeing such devices in more and more hospitals around the country. It's both efficient with room for improvments and a life saving device by being able to contact someone in a situation where a phone may not be easily accessable.