Projected capacitive touchscreens aren’t limited to smartphones; they’ve become increasingly common in the healthcare industry as well. Many medical devices are available with projected capacitive touchscreens. It’s a transformative technology that’s only expected to gain momentum among healthcare providers in the years to come.
What Are Projected Capacitive Touchscreens?
To better understand why projected capacitive touchscreens are so popular in the healthcare industry, you must familiarize yourself with this technology. Projected capacitive is a type of touchscreen technology that uses a grid of patterned electrodes to detect touch commands. It’s essentially a variant of capacitive touchscreen technology.
All capacitive touchscreens generate a uniform electrostatic field, which they measure while looking for changes in capacitance. Projected capacitive touchscreens are no exception. When turned on, projected capacitive touchscreens will generate a uniform electrostatic field. If you touch the display interface with a bare finger or any other conductive object, you’ll absorb some of this voltage. The capacitance will then change, thus allowing the projected capacitive touchscreen to identify your touch command.
Projected capacitive touchscreens, though, are designed with conductive layers featuring patterned electrodes. The electrodes are etched into the layers in a grid-like formation. The electrostatic field will travel through these electrodes. When you perform a touch command, the controller will detect the change in capacitance at the appropriate X-Y electrode intersection.
The Benefits of Projected Capacitive Touchscreens in the Healthcare Industry
Why are projected capacitive touchscreens becoming so common in the healthcare industry exactly? With their responsive characteristics, they minimize the risk of data entry errors. Healthcare providers use projected capacitive touchscreens to record patient information. The responsive nature of these devices promotes greater input accuracy while simultaneously lowering the risk of data entry errors.
Projected capacitive touchscreens are also easy to clean. They typically feature a glass top layer that’s completely sealed. You don’t need to worry about water or cleaning liquids damaging a projected capacitive touchscreen. As long as the glass top layer is properly sealed, you can clean it without damaging it.
Hospitals and other healthcare facilities use projected capacitive touchscreens for patient entertainment. Projected capacitive touchscreens can be used by patients to watch movies and TV shows or access apps.
Another benefit of projected capacitive touchscreens in the healthcare industry is support for multi-touch commands. Multi-touch commands are touch commands that, as the name suggests, involve multiple points of contact. Some touchscreen technologies only support a single point of contact. Projected capacitive touchscreens support multiple points of contact, thereby opening the doors to new commands like pinch to zoom.
