Digital pens quickly collect care data
Within a project named `Healthcare Documentation & Digital Pen´, Hamburg based IT firm Allpen is to supply digital pens to 300 employees of the healthcare association Diakonie Pflegeverbund Berlin. Based on Swedish firm Anoto's Digital Pen and Paper (DP&P) technology, each pen is fitted with a digital camera and comes with raster paper, which can be printed out either as a care form or deployment transcript.
As the pen is used to write on the raster paper, letters and words are recognised and digitised, and then the data can be transferred from the pen, via a USB docking station to a PC. There, it can be opened as a PDF file in the Document Management System (DMS) for further processing, or be made instantly accessible to the Healthcare Fund Medicinal Service (MDK) for review.
About 40 people employed in Niederschönhausen, Berlin, are using the pens, to be followed by a further deployment of pens to healthcare association’s staff at Berlin Mitte and Berlin Weissensee.
Before using the technology, data was transferred by hand into the patient management system after each case.
Besides archiving and presenting the forms, the system has a range of additional functions that support user administration, assignment of pens to staff and the management and downstream processing of care data and rendered care services.
20.12.2008
