A Mobile Hand Held Computing System for Out Patient Workflow in Hospital Environment

Hospitals around the world are taking advantage of wireless LAN-based computing technologies in view of their mobility, flexibility, and speed to improve the quality and reduce the cost of patient care. The handheld computers have evolved into a viable platform for these organizations to access and manage the patients' information wirelessly from any point of care. However, the deployment of the handheld technology is hindered by the lack of automation of workflows in the present hospital system architecture. In this paper, thin client architecture with workflow decision making is presented by considering the outpatient workflow. The prototype is not intended to replace the workflows in the healthcare but to facilitate the health care professionals to receive useful and relevant information on time with greater flexibility than before. The prototype focuses on exchanging information with existing legacy systems, updating data in real time, and making them available to healthcare professionals by organizing daily routines in the ward