Mobile informatics in a hospital environment: Moving from stationary to mobile supporting services in a medical environment

Abstract

Much of the supportive technology developed for use within medical environments is targeted towards stationary computers. In this report we present a study performed to design a mobile client for accessing and interpreting clinical lab results. The study shows that the current stationary system does not efficiently support the time critical and mobile work that is performed at the hospital ward. Healthcare professionals spend much of their time wandering between patients and offices, while the supportive technology stays stationary. The design of the prototype presented in this report reflects how clinicians work with lab results, and it also allows the users to reach the information at any location and at any time. Lab results in the prototype are presented as groups corresponding to the bodily function the lab test are to examine. A graphical view presents trends of a patient’s progress and how the patient responds to the treatment. The client also notifies the user on newly arrived results, eliminating the time required to seek out an unoccupied stationary computer in frequent intervals and manually search for new results. The report concludes that the working environment would be improved by supporting the mobile workers with mobile technology. The main result of this report is a proposition of how to design a mobile client for efficient access and interpretation of lab results.