Developing a PDA to Assist Nurses on Hospice Home Visits

Wen Technologies and Pace University are working with Phelps Hospital to develop a Telemedicine system that integrates a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), digital camera, and Global Positioning System (GPS) to facilitate and enhance the procedures currently used by Phelps Hospital nurses on hospice home visits. The system being developed includes the hardware mentioned above, plus PDA client software and server software designed in a standard client/server architecture. The hardware for this project was supplied by Wen Technologies and the software systems, both client and server, were developed by Pace University. The requirements and user scenarios were obtained through interaction with Phelps Hospice Center personnel. The Phelps Hospital server maintains a database of active nurses and of current patients including their medical history records. The client side of the system consists of PDA software and interfaces that direct the nurse to the next patient using GPS information, permit capture of photos with the camera, and facilitate collection of patient clinical data. This paper focuses on the design and development of the client/server software system, including the initial testing and usability considerations.