CNN ran a segment this morning about the FCC’s new plan to subsidize broadband internet access, remarking that Apple’s iPad, in tandem with more broadband connections at the consumer level, could spell death for the traditional newspaper industry.

That’s not a new insight. But I have a tough time believing Apple is wagering the future of a much-hyped product on an industry that is already in profound financial decline.

I do, however, view Apple’s iPad as innovation meant for one vertical market in particular, but it isn’t publishing. It’s healthcare.

Thought the particulars of healthcare reform policy are still undecided, with House Democrats pushing for a vote on a reconciled bill as soon as this weekend, the bill that ultimately becomes law is likely to include high subsidies for medical technology, in particular the digitization of medical and health records. While technology isn’t the crux of healthcare reform — progressive lawmakers seeks to expand access and lower costs with new policy instead — even the more-conservative Senate bill (H.R.3590) makes roughly a hundred mentions of grants and subsidies available to providers and care-givers for different types of medical technology. Pushing new, efficient technology that will ultimately pay for itself into hospitals and other care facilities will indeed meet one of reform’s stated purposes: reducing cost.

Meanwhile, hospitals and other care facilities have been using tablet PCs for years for a few different tasks: lab orders, prescription drug references, note-taking, e-prescribing, medical image viewing, billings/claims, and (yes) e-mail. In general, using technology in these ways makes the process of providing healthcare more efficient and less risky.

In a clinical healthcare setting, a tablet, with its touchscreen, portability, battery life, and speed, makes a lot more sense than other pieces of technology. They’re easy to use and make care-givers incredibly portable. Other benefits outside of actually providing care, such as the ability to automate insurance claims and organize a staff more efficiently, are welcome byproducts. This is why doctors widely use iPhones in clinical healthcare settings in spite of the device’s reputation as a consumer product.

All of this is not to claim the iPad is ready for the healthcare industry upon its launch. Much like the device is deficient in many ways, such as not having sealed ports to guard against wear and tear and the fact that, currently, most EMR software only runs on Windows systems in the first place, healthcare reform’s efforts to fund a massive technological expansion in hospitals and caregiving facilities will take time to be deployed from new policy to existing practice.

What else will the iPad lack? A lot. Current insurance regulation requires fingerprint security on devices that process EMR. Systems need cameras, too, which the iPad somehow doesn’t offer, for documenting diagnoses as well as the capability to scan barcodes in order to ensure some degree of patient safety. And probably a lot more. More ideas? Comment or e-mail me.

So the device may take awhile to penetrate into the healthcare industry. But it will eventually. It’ll be subsidized via healthcare reform policy and in high demand, enjoying most of the tablet market-share in healthcare settings in a few years because of third-party application innovation and the fact that it doesn’t try to awkwardly cram a desktop OS into a tablet device. All around, it’s just a better tablet device, and the healthcare industry is one that really should be adopting tablet technology quicker anyways. That it isn’t on its own is the sole reason for policy intervention in the first place.

In fact, one survey from earlier this year found “nearly 20 percent of clinicians [surveyed] expressing plans to purchase” an iPad in its first year of availability.

It isn’t a coincidence that the iPad’s release and new healthcare reform policy are set to happen at about the same time.

Hat-tip to Software Advice for some of the details about tablets and the healthcare industry. Even though its conclusion is the opposite of mine.