Design and Development of a Mobile System for Supporting Emergency Triage

W. Michalowski; R. Slowinski; S. Wilk; K. J. Farion; J. Pike; S. Rubin

doi:10.1055/s-0038-1633918

Methods of Information in Medicine, Table of Contents

Methods Inf Med 2005; 44(01): 14-24
DOI: 10.1055/s-0038-1633918

Original Article

Schattauer GmbH

Design and Development of a Mobile System for Supporting Emergency Triage

W. Michalowski

¹School of Management, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

,

R. Slowinski

²Institute of Computing Science, Poznan Technical University, Poznan, Poland

,

S. Wilk

²Institute of Computing Science, Poznan Technical University, Poznan, Poland

,

K. J. Farion

³Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

,

J. Pike

³Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

,

S. Rubin

³Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

› Author Affiliations

Abstract

Summary

Objectives: Our objective was to design and develop a mobile clinical decision support system for emergency triage of different acute pain presentations. The system should interact with existing hospital information systems, run on mobile computing devices (handheld computers) and be suitable for operation in weak-connectivity conditions (with unstable connections between mobile clients and a server).

Methods: The MET (Mobile Emergency Triage) system was designed following an extended client-server architecture. The client component, responsible for triage decision support, is built as a knowledge-based system, with domain ontology separated from generic problem solving methods and used for the automatic creation of a user interface.

Results: The MET system is well suited for operation in the Emergency Department of a hospital. The system’s external interactions are managed by the server, while the MET clients, running on handheld computers are used by clinicians for collecting clinical data and supporting triage at the bedside. The functionality of the MET client is distributed into specialized modules, responsible for triaging specific types of acute pain presentations. The modules are stored on the server, and on request they can be transferred and executed on the mobile clients. The modular design provides for easy extension of the system’s functionality. A clinical trial of the MET system validated the appropriateness of the system’s design, and proved the usefulness and acceptance of the system in clinical practice.

Conclusions: The MET system captures the necessary hospital data, allows for entry of patient information, and provides triage support. By operating on handheld computers, it fits into the regular emergency department workflow without introducing any hindrances or disruptions. It supports triage anytime and anywhere, directly at the point of care, and also can be used as an electronic patient chart, facilitating structured data collection.

Keywords

Clinical decision support systems - triage - handheld computers - hospital emergency service

Full Text

References

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