Evaluating the Workload Reduction of Automatic Vital Data Transmission

As a conventional hospital information system (HIS) requires clinical staff to record data, the introduction of an HIS deprives those staff of time for direct treatment and care. This paper introduces the first commercial automatic vital data transmission system that records patients' body temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate, and arterial oxygen saturation in the clinical environment of Kyoto University Hospital. The results of task-and-motion analysis and system logging show that the system reduces the time required to record vital data by 40%. Furthermore, the system is expected to eliminate human error that may occur due to nurses failing to input data, or inputting erroneous data. To maximize the benefit of using information and communication technologies, the development of medical sensors that can be interfaced directly with a ubiquitous health-support information environment, namely an HIS, is indispensable.