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Improving Patient Throughput by Streamlining the Surgical Care-Pathway Process

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Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare (MobiHealth 2020)

Abstract

The delivery of a patient, to the operating theatre, in every hospital, consists of several heterogeneous departments working synchronously via communicating and sharing information, in relation to the current state of a patient’s care, as they travel through the surgical care-path way. The surgical care-pathway typically starts at admissions and finishes as the patient is leaving recovery. The problem being, as a patient navigates the care-pathway, there are numerous risk factors in the forms of technical, environmental and human that can influence a delay in the delivery of care. This paper will discuss these risk factors and highlight different approaches taken by several authors to address such issues. Additionally, a software application will be discussed that has being developed by the author that uses portable mobile devices, to address similar issues, for a private health care provider in the south of Ireland. The results of implementing the new solution show a potential decrease in patient throughput time and an overall increase of task visibility, across the surgical care-pathway.

J. Nogales—Project Coordinator.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported with the financial support of the Science Foundation Ireland grant 13/RC/2094 and co-funded under the European Regional DevelopmentFund through the Southern & Eastern RegionalOperational Programme to Lero - the Irish SoftwareResearch Centre (www.lero.ie).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tralee Institute of Technology Co., Kerry, Ireland

    David Mc Mahon & Juncal Nogales

  2. Head of School (STEM), Tralee Institute of Technology Co., Kerry, Ireland

    Joseph Walsh

  3. Head of Department, Tralee Institute of Technology Co., Kerry, Ireland

    Eilish Broderick

Authors
  1. David Mc Mahon
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  2. Joseph Walsh
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  3. Eilish Broderick
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  4. Juncal Nogales
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Mc Mahon .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

    Juan Ye

  2. School of Computer Science and Information Technology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Michael J. O'Grady

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Gabriele Civitarese

  4. Faculty of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany

    Kristina Yordanova

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Mahon, D.M., Walsh, J., Broderick, E., Nogales, J. (2021). Improving Patient Throughput by Streamlining the Surgical Care-Pathway Process. In: Ye, J., O'Grady, M.J., Civitarese, G., Yordanova, K. (eds) Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare. MobiHealth 2020. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 362. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70569-5_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70569-5_12

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