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Implementation Issues for Mobile-Wireless Infrastructure and Mobile Health Care Computing Devices for a Hospital Ward Setting

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Abstract

mWard is a project whose purpose is to enhance existing clinical and administrative decision support and to consider mobile computers, connected via wireless network, for bringing clinical information to the point of care. The mWard project allowed a limited number of users to test and evaluate a selected range of mobile-wireless infrastructure and mobile health care computing devices at the neuroscience ward at Southern Health’s Monash Medical Centre, Victoria, Australia. Before the project commenced, the ward had two PC’s which were used as terminals by all ward-based staff and numerous multi-disciplinary staff who visited the ward each day. The first stage of the research, outlined in this paper, evaluates a selected range of mobile-wireless infrastructure.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Australian Research Council. The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of Ms Lyn Wallace and Mr David Ramsay from Southern Health’s Monash Medical Centre (MMC) and staff from NEC who provided valuable and ongoing support to this project. We are grateful to our partners who have also funded part of our project. The official mWard partners are the Australian Research Council (ARC), Monash University, Southern Health through MMC, and NEC Business Solutions Pty Ltd. Companies associated with the mWard project and who also have provided equipment and support are Symbol Technologies and WARP who is the principal Symbol equipment supplier, and NEC Channel Partner Tele-IP (formally Able Communications and Telenet Communications).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Health, Engineering and Science, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Liza Heslop

  2. Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Caulfield, Victoria, Australia

    Stephen Weeding, Linda Dawson & Julie Fisher

  3. NEC Australia Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Andrew Howard

Authors
  1. Liza Heslop
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  2. Stephen Weeding
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  3. Linda Dawson
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  4. Julie Fisher
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  5. Andrew Howard
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stephen Weeding.

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Footnotes

The public health organization where the study was conducted is identifying a new computer system and the current project will contribute to the configuration of the new system to some degree.

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Heslop, L., Weeding, S., Dawson, L. et al. Implementation Issues for Mobile-Wireless Infrastructure and Mobile Health Care Computing Devices for a Hospital Ward Setting. J Med Syst 34, 509–518 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-009-9264-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-009-9264-y

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