Point-of-Treatment: Touchable e-Nursing User Interface for Medical Emergencies A portable e-Nursing Medical Information System Approach
Christian Sax, Elaine Lawrence · 2009
A common occurrence in any nursing home for the elderly is a medical emergency such as a cardiac arrest, a fall or a diabetic seizure. Our goal was to provide an effective and supportive graphical user interface for nursing personnel and care-givers who are first responders to such an emergency situation. A prototype called Portable Medical Monitoring Computer (PMMC) was developed to provide a possible solution to the growing demand for effective, appropriate and efficient elderly care, especially in emergency situations. It is classified as a touchable Medical e-Nursing Information System to support registered nurses in nursing homes with vital sign parameters and other medical information about residents who are suffering a medical emergency. The application was designed around the concept of a portable computer with a touch screen, which allows users to access information next to the casualty at the point-of-treatment. The main goal of this project was to design a usable interface for this emergency deployment scenario. This front-end application receives a variety of information, including vital sign information from the existing wireless sensor network called ReMoteCare. This application prototype has the potential to significantly help serve the future needs of caregivers during an emergency situation through its easy to use, straight forward interface that allows quick and accurate access to vital sign and medical data. The paper reports on the advantages and improvements related to the mobile touch screen GUI. I. INTRODUCTION Wireless sensor networks (WSN) offer hope for decreasing the cost of monitoring the elderly in nursing homes whilst still providing a satisfactory level of care. Wireless sensor network nodes (called motes) equipped with sensors can be used to monitor a person's vital signs, cameras enable remote monitoring of living spaces in case of an emergency and vital sign thresholds can be set to ensure that action is taken if a particular limit is reached (3). The justification for this research is spread across economic and social imperatives, such as helping governments to limit the rising costs for caring for the elderly whilst not jeopardizing the standard of care. One overarching area of interest of the healthcare industry is in heterogeneous and autonomous data acquisition systems. It is important to develop cost effective treatments, which optimize patient safety, while minimizing treatment cost and the possibility of malpractice litigation (7). Saving money is a rising issue for society as stated in the United Nation report on future demographic development (15). The report shows that the population group of people aged 60 years and over (called elderly) is growing dramatically. For the next four decades the number of elderly people will rise from 264 million to 416 million which is an increase of more than 50 per cent by the year 2050. In other words: developed countries have to cope with the fact that the elderly population is growing rapidly whereas fewer children, who would form the future, core healthcare workforce, are being born. Our wireless sensor network prototype ReMoteCare system allows for the monitoring of more patients at the same time with the same number of staff. To harness the potential of ReMoteCare's WSN in medical emergency situations the gathered vital signs and medical information have to be provided to nurses, who are responding to medical emergencies, in a supportive and calm