Business Agility: Strategies for Gaining Competitive Advantage through Mobile Business Solutions

For example, a rescue crew could receive data on the layout of a

burning building. This could help them navigate through the building

to rescue trapped victims. A law enforcement officer could pull up

information using a wireless handheld device related to a person, vehi-

cle, or other article from a major criminal database without having to

make trips back to the officer’s vehicle. A fire department could per-

form property inspections for potential fire hazards and have inspec-

tion data immediately validated upon entry on a wireless device.

Health Care

140 >> Business Agility

Creating a Mobile Solution for Doctors

University Hospital (Universitaetsklinik),

Mainz, Germany

Executive Summary

The neurosurgery department within the University Hospital in Mainz, Germany,

was looking for a way to increase doctors’ productivity by allowing them to spend

more time focused on patient care and less time manually looking up and writing

down classification codes to satisfy German regulations.

They used a Bluetooth network to enable flexibility and mobility around the hospi-

tal so that doctors could manage patient records via their PDAs. The solution con-

stantly synchronized data wirelessly and gave the doctors access to the most recent

patient information.

Solution

Category: Wireless LAN

Application: Wireless access to

patient records

Technology: Red-M Bluetooth

Network

Target Audience: Physicians

Devices: PDAs

Company

University, Mainz

Name: University Hospital, Mainz

Web Site:

http://www.klinik.uni-mainz.de

Department: Neurosurgery

Department

Business: Healthcare

HQ: Mainz, Germany

Chapter 5 • Industry Examples >> 141

Challenge

In order to satisfy German regulations, all doctors at the University Hospital have to

record diagnoses and surgical procedures for patients according to international

classification codes stored in the hospital’s database. Doctors had to take time away

from patient care in order to manually look up codes and record them on paper.

Later, these paper notes were entered into the system for balancing against the

patient’s health insurance policies. The Hospital was looking for a way to increase

productivity and allow the doctors to have easy access to patent data as they moved

around the hospital.

Solution

The solution that was implemented was the Bluetooth networking solution from

Red-M, a U.K.-based company that develops and markets hardware and software

product solutions that enable mobile data, voice, and video communications inside

buildings and public concourses to a range of handheld and mobile devices.

The solution utilized the Red-M 3000AS access server and the 1000AP access

point as part of the Bluetooth network. The access points are small devices that are

situated around the hospital areas where the Bluetooth network is to be provided.

Access points act as “Bluetooth base stations” and provide up to 31,420 m

2

of wire-

less coverage around each access point. The access server is the central device in

the Bluetooth network and provides shared network services such as Internet

access, intranet access, and connectivity to a PBX-based voice system.

Benefits

Some of the benefits of the solution have included the ability for doctors to have

access to the most recent patient information on their PDAs, the ability to access

classification codes for patient care on their PDAs from data stored in the hospital’s

SAP R/3 database, and the general increase in productivity that the PDAs have

enabled. Doctors can now spend more time on patient care and less time on the

less-value added tasks of record keeping.

Benefits

Time Savings

Greater Data Accuracy

More Time On Patient Care

Challenge and Business Drivers

Business Drivers

>> Productivity

>> Data Accuracy

Former Process

>> Physicians had to manually look

up codes and make paper-based

notes