Mobile-based Hospital Bed Management with Near Field Communication Technology

摘要

Bed management is one of the most crucial tasks in ahospital. A desktop-based (PC) information technology systemhas been widely adopted to assist this operation. The fixedlocation and the limited amount of available PCs shared amongstaff for different routine tasks can cause delays in bedinformation updating and therefore delays to the bedmanagement processes. With the penetration of smartphones, amobile-based application becomes a reliable alternative solutionfor bed management to complement the existing system.Smartphones offer a few benefits, especially mobility becauseusers can update the information from any place and at any time.Our aim was to study the applicability of a mobile-basedapplication for assisting bed management operation. Theapplication consisted of ward-based bed informationvisualization, bed information updating, and ward informationupdating modules. Observation and interviews with expert userswere performed to outline the required functions of theapplication. On a Likert 1-5 scale, the mobile applicationachieved a mean score of 3.45 for usefulness, 3.40 for ease of use,and 3.42 for satisfaction. Meanwhile, the respondents were alsoconcerned about the mobile data consumption of the app, whichtook up 45.8% of the negative feedback. On the positive side, therespondents agree that the mobile application helps them in thebed management operation.