With the advancement of hand-held devices, wireless and sensor network pervasive computing has achieved a perfect momentum. Formerly, a requirement existed that was a serious impediment and threat to the mobility of users – the necessary presence of a fixed wired network. This has been resolved by the recent advances in wireless and mobile technologies, particularly Bluetooth and WiFi. The advancement of available, portable, low cost mobile devices (PDAs, cell phones, etc.) has resulted in the user's mobility at unprecedented levels. As these devices can communicate with one another, the combined capabilities can be leveraged to form a useful new set of tools. Presently, pervasive computing is being extended into the sophisticated healthcare sector with the promise of providing an easier and more efficient mode of communication between physicians and patients or between the physicians themselves. In this paper we provide the details of our application 'Healthcare Aide', which has been designed to provide not only more convenience for doctor – doctor, resident doctor – doctor, patient – doctor and nurse – doctor interaction but also a smooth pathway for real-time decision making. Our pervasive middleware MARKS (Middleware Adaptability for Resource Discovery, Knowledge Usability and Self-healing) provides the underlying support for this application in a completely transparent manner. In this paper, we have also presented our survey results from users' point of view along with performance analysis.
Die technologischen Fortschritte bei Pocketcomputern, drahtlosen Netzwerken (insbesondere Bluetooth und WiFi) und Sensoren ermöglichen die weitgehende Unterstützung der Mobilität von Benutzern – dort wo früher Einschränkungen aufgrund fest verlegter Netzwerkkabel bestanden. Da Pocketcomputer immer leistungsfähiger und preiswerter werden und auch miteinander problemlos kommunizieren können, verspricht die Entwicklung entsprechender Applikationen Unterstützung im Bereich des Gesundheitswesens. In diesem Beitrag präsentieren die Autoren Details zur Anwendung "Healthcare Aide", die zur Interaktion und Echtzeit-Entscheidungsfindung bei Arzt – Arzt, Patient – Arzt, Schwester – Arzt verwendet werden kann. Die Middleware MARKS stellt die technische Plattform für diese Anwendung dar. In diesem Beitrag werden darüber hinaus Studienergebnisse aus der Sicht der Benutzer zusammen mit einer Performanzanalyse präsentiert.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
100+ applications for PDA, http://www.valusoft.com/products/100appspda.html
ACP-ASIM press release, American College of Physicians, 9-3-2002 (electronic citation).
Ahamed, S. I., Sharmin, M., Ahmed, S., Havice, Michael, J., Anamanamuri, Suresh (2005): An assessment tool for out of class learning using pervasive computing technologies. J. Inform. 8 (5), Sep. 2005.
Ahmed, S., Sharmin, M., Ahamed, S. I. (2005a): GETS (Generic, Efficient, Transparent, and Secured) Self-healing service for pervasive computing applications. Submitted.
Ahmed, S., Sharmin, M., Ahamed, S. I. (2005b): Knowledge usability and its characteristics for pervasive computing. The 2005 Int. Conf. on Pervasive Systems and Computing (PSC-05) in conjunction with the 2005 Int. Multi-conference in Computer Science and Engineering, CSREA Press, Las Vegas, NV, USA, June 2005: 206–209.
Ahmed, S., Sharmin, M., Ahamed, S. I. (2006): Ubicomp assistant: an omnipresent customizable service for MARKS (Middleware Adaptability for Resource Discovery, Knowledge Usability and Self-healing). accepted for SAC 06.
Barrett, J. R., Strayer, S. M., Schubart, J. R. (2004): Assessing medical residents' usage and perceived needs for personal digital assistants. Int. J. Med. Inform. 2004 Feb, 73 (1): 25–34.
BizJournals (2004): Healthy investment for hospitals: wireless nets. http://www.bizjournals.com/industries/health_care/hospitals/2004/09/20/eastbay_story7.html
Breslin, S., Greskovich, W., Turisco, F. (2004): Wireless technology improves nursing workflow and communications. Comput. Inform. Nurs. 2004 Sep–Oct; 22 (5): 75–81.
Buck, D. S., Rochon, D., Turley, J. P. (2005): Taking it to the streets: recording medical outreach data on personal digital assistants. Comput. Inform. Nurs. 2005 Sep–Oct; 23 (5): 250–255.
Bullard, M. J., Meurer, D. P., Colman, I., Holroyd, B. R., Rowe, B. H. (2004): Supporting clinical practice at the bedside using wireless technology. Acad. Emerg. Med. 2004 Nov; 11 (11): 1186–1192.
Cognitive Walkthrough Strategy, http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~zwz22/CognWalk.htm
Constellation Project: experience and evaluation of personal digital assistants in the clinical environment, Proc. of the 19th Annual Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care, 1995: 678.
Favela, J., Rodriguez, M., Preciado, A., Gonzalez, V. (2004): Integrating context-aware public displays into a mobile hospital information system. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine. 8 (3), Sep. 2004.
Goldblum, O. M. (2002): Semin Cutan Med Surg. 2002 Sep; 21 (3): 190–201.
Harris interactive poll results, Harris Poll (2002): Physician's use of hand-helds increases from 15 % in 1999 to 26 % in 2001. 8-24-2002 (electronic citation).
Holzinger, A. (2004a): Application of rapid prototyping to the user interface development for a virtual medical campus. IEEE Software. 21 (1), January 2004, 92–99, ISSN: 0740-7459.
Holzinger, A. (2005): Usability engineering for software developers. Communications of the ACM, 48 (1) (January 2005): 71–74, ISSN: 0001-0782.
http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw60/caceres.html
Holzinger, A., Errath, M. (2004b): Designing web-applications for mobile computers: experiences with applications to medicine. In: Stephanidis, C.; Stary, Chr. (2004): User centered interaction paradigms for universal access in the information society. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, LNCS 3196, ISBN: 3-540-23375-X.
Lorincz, K., Malan, David, Fulford-Jones, Thaddeus, R. F., Nawoj, Alan, Clavel, Antony, Shnayder, V., Mainland, Geoff, Moulton, Steve, Welsh, M. (2004): Sensor networks for emergency response: challenges and opportunities. In: IEEE Pervasive Computing, Special Issue on Pervasive Computing for First Response, Oct–Dec 2004.
Muñoz, M., Gonzalez, V., Rodríguez, M., Favela, J. (2003a): Supporting context-aware collaboration in a hospital: an ethnographic informed design. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 2806, September 2003: 330–344.
Muñoz, M. A., Rodriguez, M., Favela, J., Martinez-Garcia, A. I., Gonzalez, V. (2003b): Context-aware mobile communication in hospitals. Computer IEEE, 2003, 36 (9): 38–46.
Raman, B., Raman, R., Raman, L., Beauliu, C. F. (2004): Radiographics. 2004 Jan–Feb; 24 (1): 299–310. Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, 300 Pasteur Dr, Stanford, CA 94305-5105, USA.
Ratib, O., McCoy, J. M., McGill, D. R., Li, M., Brown, A. (2003): Use of personal digital assistants for retrieval of medical images and data on high-resolution flat panel displays. Radiographics, 2003 Jan–Feb; 23 (1): 267–272.
Rodriguez, M., Favela, J., Gonzalez, V., Muñoz, M. A. (2003): Agent-based mobile collaboration and information access in a healthcare environment. In: eHealth: Application of Computing Science in Medicine and Healthcare. Rudomin, I., Vazquez, J., Diaz, J. L. (eds.). Published by the Instituto Politecnico Nacional. Mexico, 2003. ISNB 970-36-0118-9: 133–148.
Saranummi, N., Korhonen, I., van Gils, M., Kivisaari, S. (2001): Barriers limiting the diffusion of ICT for proactive and pervasive health care. In: Proc. of the IX MEDICON, Pula, Croatia, 2001.
Sharmin, M., Ahmed, S., Ahamed, S. I. (2005a): SAFE-RD (Secure, Adaptive, Fault Tolerant, and Efficient Resource Discovery) in pervasive computing environments. The IEEE Int. Conf. on Information Technology (ITCC 2005), Las Vegas, NV, USA, April 2005: 271–276.
Sharmin, M., Ahmed, S., Ahamed, S. I. (2006a): MARKS (Middleware Adaptability for Resource Discovery, Knowledge Usability and Self-healing) for mobile devices of pervasive computing environments. To appear in the Proc. of Third Int. Conf. on Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2006), April, 2006, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Sharmin, M., Ahmed, S., Ahamed, S. I., Haque, M., Khan, A. J. (2006b): Healthcare Aide: towards a virtual assistant for doctors using pervasive middleware. Proc. of the 1st Workshop on Ubiquitous and Pervasive Health Care (UbiCare 2006) in conjunction with Fourth Annual IEEE Int. Conf. on Pervasive Computer and Communications (PerCom 2006), Pisa, Italy, Mar 2006: 490–495.
Shnayder, V., Bor-rong, Chen, Lorincz, K., Fulford-Jones, Thaddeus, R. F., Welsh, M. (2005): Sensor networks for medical care. Harvard University Technical Report. TR-08-05, April 2005.
Tentori, M., Favela, J., Gonzalez, V., Rodríguez, M. (2005a): Supporting quality of privacy (QoP). In: Pervasive Computing. Proc. of Encuentro Internacional de Ciencias de la Computación (ENC) 2005. IEEE Computer Press, Puebla, Mexico. (pdf file)
Tentori, M., Favela, J., González, V. (2005b): Designing for privacy in ubiquitous computing environments. Proc. of UCAMI '05. Granada, España. (pdf file) J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. 9 (1) (2002) 80.
Weiser, M. (1993): Some computer science problems in ubiquitous computing. Communications of the ACM, 36 (7), July 1993: 75–84.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ahamed, S., Sharmin, M., Ahmed, S. et al. Design and implementation of a virtual assistant for healthcare professionals using pervasive computing technologies. Elektrotech. Inftech. 123, 112–120 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00502-006-0335
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00502-006-0335