Design and development of a prototype for an inexpensive, multi-node mobile, Palm-PDA-based wireless clinical information system platform

摘要

In this paper, we describe the design, development, and testing of an inexpensive wireless intelligent patient monitoring system. The system uses commercially-available wireless data acquisition links that operate on non-IEEE-802.x frequencies to reduce privacy and security concerns. It uses the more readily secured and robust wired Ethernet LAN to move data through the hospital to a PC-based Ethernet server. This server stores the patient data in a relational database and also includes an intelligent agent to send "alerts" to a clinical user whenever patient data exceeds safe limits. Finally, there an IEEE-802.1lx wireless network is used to allow the clinical user to view patient data and receive intelligent alerts in realtime on a Palm PDA wherever they are in the hospital. As hospitals move towards the Integrated Healthcare Enterprise, and federated Electronic Health Records and Regional Healthcare Information Organizations, reliable, secure, and readily deployable mobile medical device networks will play an important role in automatic transfer of patient data to many parts of the healthcare enterprise.