Skip to main content

Developing a Wearable Assistant for Hospital Ward Rounds: An Experience Report

  • Conference paper
The Internet of Things

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 4952))

Abstract

We describe the results of a three year effort to develop, deploy, and evaluate a wearable staff support system for hospital ward rounds. We begin by describing elaborate workplace studies and staff interviews and the resulting requirements. We then present a wearable system developed on the basis of those requirements. It consists of a belt worn PC (QBIC) for the doctor, wrist worn accelerometer for gesture recognition, a wrist worn RFID reader, a bedside display, and a PDA for the nurse. Results of evaluation of the system, including simulated (with dummy patient) ward rounds with 9 different doctors and accompanying nurses are given. The results of the evaluation have lead to a new system version aimed at deployment in real life ’production environment’ (doctors and nurses performing ward rounds with real patients). The paper concludes by describing this next generation system and initial experiences from a first two week test deployment in a real life hospital setting.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. wearIT@work Project: http://www.wearitatwork.com/

  2. Noma, H., Ohmura, A., Kuwahara, N., Kogure, K.: Wearable sensors for auto-event-recording on medical nursing - user study of ergonomic design. In: McIlraith, S.A., Plexousakis, D., van Harmelen, F. (eds.) ISWC 2004. LNCS, vol. 3298, pp. 8–15. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Rodriguez, N.J., Borges, J.A., Soler, Y., Murillo, V., Sands, D.Z.: A usability study of physicians’ interaction with PDA and laptop applications to access an electronic patient record system. In: Computer-Based Medical Systems, 2004. CBMS 2004. Proceedings. 17th IEEE Symposium, pp. 153–160 (June 2004)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Rodriguez, N.J., Borges, J.A., Soler, Y., Murillo, V., Colon-Rivera, C.R., Sands, D.Z., Bourie, T.: PDA vs. laptop: A comparison of two versions of a nursing documentation application. In: Computer-Based Medical Systems, 2003 Proceedings. 16th IEEE Symposium, pp. 201–206 (June 2003)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Young, P., Leung, R., Ho, L., McGhee, S.: An evaluation of the use of hand-held computers for bedside nursing care. International Journal of Medical Informatics 62(2-3), 189–193 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Choi, J., Yoo, S., Park, H., Chun, J.: Mobilemed: A PDA-based mobile clinical information system. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine 10(3), 627–635 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Ancona, M., Dodero, G., Gianuzzi, V., Minuto, F., Guida, M.: Mobile computing in a hospital: the WARD-IN-HAND project. In: ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Tani, B.S., Maia, R.S., Wangenheim, A.v.: A gesture interface for radiological workstations. In: Computer-Based Medical Systems, 2007. CBMS 2007. Twentieth IEEE International Symposium, pp. 27–32 (June 2007)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Mobile Clinical Assistant, http://www.intel.com/healthcare/ps/mca/index.htm

  10. Klug, T., Mühlhäuser, M.: Taskobserver: A tool for computer aided observations in complex mobile situations. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Mobile Technology, Applications and Systems (Mobility), September 2007 (to appear)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Carlsson, V., Klug, T., Ziegert, T., Zinnen, A.: Wearable computers in clinical ward rounds. In: Proceedings of the third International Forum on Applied Wearable Computing, IFAWC 2006, pp. 45–53 (March 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Carlsson, V., Klug, T., Zinnen, A., Ziegert, T., Levin-Sagi, M., Pasher, E.: A Comprehensive Human Factors Analysis of Wearable Computers Supporting a Hospital Ward Round. In: Proceedings of 4th International Forum on Applied Wearable Computing 2007, VDE (March 2007)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Bannach, D., Kunze, K., Lukowicz, P.: Distributed modular toolbox for multi-modal context recognition. In: Grass, W., Sick, B., Waldschmidt, K. (eds.) ARCS 2006. LNCS, vol. 3894, pp. 99–113. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. TecO Particles, http://particle.teco.edu/

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Christian Floerkemeier Marc Langheinrich Elgar Fleisch Friedemann Mattern Sanjay E. Sarma

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Adamer, K. et al. (2008). Developing a Wearable Assistant for Hospital Ward Rounds: An Experience Report. In: Floerkemeier, C., Langheinrich, M., Fleisch, E., Mattern, F., Sarma, S.E. (eds) The Internet of Things. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4952. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-78731-0_19

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-78731-0_19

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-78730-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-78731-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics