 | Immediate and complete information access for staff and patients at a Norwegian hospital provides a look into the future of health care. |
You might not expect to find one of the most IT-integrated commercial structures in the world north of the 63rd parallel, but that is exactly what is happening as St. Olavs Hospital nears its first stage of completion in Trondheim on the northwestern coast of Norway. In this new university hospital, patient treatment, research, and teaching are planned as integrated functions.
For the healthcare market, HP is repositioning its iPAQ Pocket PC from being classified as a PDA to now as a “Medical Digital Assistant (MDA).” This handheld device will have extended functionalities, such that when the wireless network is accessed, updated patient information will be available on the MDA and any new notes will be automatically updated.
The first of six clinical centers are scheduled to be completed by June 2006. The entire 200,000-m2 project is scheduled to be completed in 2015—over the entire length of the program more than 80% of the old hospital will be demolished, however it will remain in full operation throughout that term. The hos-pital is being planned with such conveniences as automatic garbage disposal, automatic transportation of supplies, and an extensive pneumatic tube system for samples and medicines. And tying all of the information needs of this mammoth project together is a state-of-the-art wireless-based ICT (information and communications technology) infrastructure.
Main contractors for developing the approximately $200 million ICT system are Telenor, Norway, for overall project management and advanced telephony; Cardiac, Porsgrunn, Norway, for data acquisition, message handling, and patient terminals; HP-Norway, Oslo, networking and computer systems for routers and wireless network equipment; and Cisco, San Jose, Calif., for routers.
The systems developed by these contractors and their subcontractors will allow health, administrative, and emergency personnel, regardless of where they are within the hospital complex, to have immediate access to wireless equipment that can provide them with complete real-time and historical information on their patients. This information will include access to the patient journals, lab analyses, current patient parameters, and patient visuals such as MRIs and x-ray images. The patients themselves will have access to their patient journal, emergency services, entertainment including TV, phone, video on demand, email, and the Internet, menu ordering, and more, all through a single easily accessible user interface at their bedside.
 IMATIS monitors at St. Olavs’ patient bedside can display numerous instrumentation readouts, patient journal information, medical imaging graphics, and medicine/medical history, along with providing entertainment and communications capabilities for the patient.
“This IT infrastructure is the most modern for a hospital in Europe, which will form the basis for entirely new treatment methods, increased efficiency, improved patient treatment, and an improvement in the general conditions for everyone,” says Tore Indrerak, ICT manager for St. Olavs.
Ola Bergslein, medical director at St. Olavs agrees. “Necessary patient information is available anywhere, anytime,” he says. “The wireless network will give us patient information, where needed and when needed, along with communication systems, alarms, and calls. It will make life a lot easier for us, compared to today where we have to run to telephones to respond to an emergency call.”
DAQ software
The Cardiac (for Computer-Aided Research, Development, Instrumentation And Control) system will be responsible for managing the professional and patient information needs. Cardiac’s product IMATIS (Integrated Module-based Administrative Technical Information System) will be responsible for routing these information packets to the relevant receiver. IMATIS will also be integrated to manage the building automation systems as well.
All data will be configured with regards to who the sender and the potential receivers are. The IMATIS message server will also be connected to a localizing system, so that all messages will be sent to the receivers with the best opportunity to perform the required specific task at that time. Messages will then be displayed and configured for output on workstation computers, PDAs (personal digital assistants), IP (Internet Protocol)-phones, and cell phones. For the healthcare market, HP is repositioning its iPAQ Pocket PC from being classified as a PDA to now as a “Medical Digital Assistant (MDA).” This handheld device will have extended functionalities, such that when the wireless network is accessed, updated patient information will be available on the MDA and any new notes will be automatically updated.
“All the systems interface with each other,” says Rune Dossland, a project manager at Telenor. “They also interface with systems not supplied by the ICT contractors, such as civil engineering interfaces, life systems, alarm systems, fire alarm systems, and locking systems. When a nurse needs help she can press a dedicated alarm key on her MDA and the alarm will alert the proper staff relative to the cause of the alarm. This system seems quite simple, but it requires a complex technological link between the different systems to make it work.”
Cardiac IMATIS is based on National Instruments’, Austin, Texas, LabVIEW or LabWindows programming interface (G programming language). Developed initially as a spin-off of research work being performed in laboratory automation by groups at the Norwegian Institute of Technology and its research organization SINTEF, Cardiac has grown in the number of applications in instrumentation and data acquisition for research, information processing for advanced control systems, and dynamic modeling and simulation.
Cardiac IMATIS also released its fourth version of a laboratory information management system (LIMS) last year that can obtain test results directly from analytical laboratory instruments or instrument-controlling PCs. These instruments include the full breadth of chromatography, spectroscopy, and materials analysis devices. IMATIS also includes modules for device relationship management for simplified connections, control, service, maintenance, and messaging notifications. IMATIS LIMS is fully compliant with FDA 21 CFR Part 11.
Wireless roaming
HP-Norway and sub-contractor Ecutel, Oslo, Norway, were charged with the design and development for the IP-based network within St. Olavs Hospital. The IP-roaming solution is expected to provide the more than 7,500 employees at St. Olavs a seamless and secure network connection that roams between a local cable network (LAN), wireless network (WLAN), and carrier-based GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) networks.
Ecutel’s Viatores will be used within St. Olavs for its laptop and handheld PC devices to automatically set up a VPN (Virtual Private Network) when moving from a secure network to a non-secure network. Each user then will have a secure connection to resources behind the hospital’s firewall. With Viatores, the employees’ connection will be just as secure with a public WAN (Wide-Area Network) or LAN connection.
“All staff will be able to log on at any time, anywhere, in corridors or wards, and retrieve relevant information for a given patient,” says St. Olavs’ Bergslien. “The patient will be safer because the information is immediately accessible without delay.” All of St. Olavs’ employees will receive a personal ID card (Smartcard) with a PIN (Personal Identification Number) code to use as their network login instead of a user ID and password. The same ID card can be used to freely open all doors within the hospital and even be used for payment in the cafeteria.
With these capabilities for seamless roaming between LAN, WLAN, WAN, and GPRS, combined with the always available secure connections to critical information resources, users are expected to be able to work much more efficiently, eliminating the need to reestablish a VPN connection and application session each time the network connection is broken.
“St. Olavs is being referred to as the ‘hospital of the future,’” says Ingalill Wallin Nilsen, a nurse at St. Olavs. “We’ve already seen the benefits of the wireless computers. Referrals [doctor’s prescriptions] used to involve a lot of paperwork. Now the doctors write the referral on a PC and send it to the right place. The response is fast. The system is safe because there is no danger of misplacing papers. And we always have access to the patient journals. It makes us and the patient feel safe. We already see the advantages.”
Other applications
While St. Olavs is a very visible application of the Cardiac data acquisition and control software, there are other less visible applications. One of the least visible applications is for monitoring and operating an unmanned undersea vessel for dredging the ocean bottom for an oil pipeline off the coast of Norway.
The subsea vessel SPIDER was designed to operate in both deep waters and on steep slopes of the ocean floor. Cardiac was used here to operate, monitor, and report on the location and orientation of the SPIDER vessel with 3-D positioning input from onboard sensors. A 3-D model is then created by Cardiac and displayed on the remote operator’s video screen in real time in combination with ocean bottom terrain information. The 3-D model is used by the operator as a tool for optimizing depth and extension of the trench being created by the SPIDER.
Other applications where the software has been installed include dynamic modeling and simulation of petrochemical plants, and data acquisition and control systems for offshore drilling rigs.
—Tim Studt
Source: http://www.rdmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCODE=014&ACCT=1400000100&ISSUE=0506&RELTYPE=FE&PRODCODE=00000000&PRODLETT=AE |
