Wireless at the bedside
Italy - The WardInHand project, which set out to provide a tool for medical teams to access a hospital information system (HIS) from wards, does not replace or compete with existing hospital systems but adds mobility and 'ubiquitous computing' to the HIS, by exchanging information with existing tools and updating clinical data in real time.
The device also allows data exchange between medical personnel, the co-ordination and synchronisation of activities, and helps to ensure drugs and/or consumables availability.
The project co-ordinator - Salvatore Virtuoso, of TXT e-Solutions, Milan, Italy - said that, when prototypes were used in trials at three European hospitals, a significant increase in the quality of the healthcare services was recorded - due to reduced errors in data transcription; enforcement of quality and safety standards and the provision of better, more timely information to healthcare professionals.
The WardInHand project sprung from an initiative of an international consortium, IT companies and hospitals, and has received European Commission financial support.
Wristbands tell all
USA - As part of a pilot project headed by Dr Olaf Kaestner at the Jacobi Medical Centre, New York, Siemens Business Services has provided over 200 patients with radio wristbands. These contain a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip (already marketed), on which patients’ details and medical record numbers had been entered on admission. Hospital staff have been equipped with extra-light notebook PCs, PDAs, or tablet PCs that are WLAN-enabled and fitted with a small RFID reader, which, via a WLAN, allows them to gain authorised access to the central database from which they can download patients’ data, whilst standing at patients’ bedsides. There they also can update the electronic patient record (EPR), eliminated the need to do this later, or to print them. So far time saving is reported as ‘substantial’.
RFID functions were integrated into existing character-oriented hospital backend application through a direct link to the Windows-based front-end that runs on the mobile PC. The new RFID components in the wristbands and data transmission RFID chip were developed on the basis of Microsoft. NET, using a toolbox created by Siemens Business Services.
Details: olaf@sni-svy.com
01.07.2004
