Page 1
Page 2
Visit
SYWARE's Visual CE download page.
Hospitals vary in size and focus, but
they are all staffed by a variety of professionals who walk
around performing activities where data has to be captured,
accessed, and analyzed. It's the type of environment that
lends itself to handheld computers.
By eliminating the need to record data
on paper forms, handhelds increase efficiency both for the
user as well as the medical facility as a whole. Time saving
techniques such as drop-down lists allow data to be captured
electronically in a fraction of the time required using
paper forms. Information can be entered into the hospital's
central medical records system the same day it is collected,
improving the quality of care and eliminating gaps between
the time data is recorded and when it becomes available.
One major issue is application development.
In contrast to a warehouse, for example, where all personnel
might use the same order processing application, the nurses,
doctors, therapists, and other professionals in a hospital
could make use of dozens of different applications. However,
application development for handhelds does not have to be
a complex, expensive project. Software productivity tools
are available that make creating handheld applications extremely
easy, even without programming experience.
Geoff Lawton, Director of Pharmacy Services
at the Medical Center of Aurora, Colorado, saw the potential
for handhelds to reduce the paper burden in the Pharmacy
department of the 350-bed acute care hospital. He is emphatically
not a programmer - his background is in pharmacy, along
with an MBA. However, despite his lack of development experience,
he was able to use a software productivity tool called Visual
CE to create valuable applications that are in constant
use by the 45-person Pharmacy department.
As far as Lawton is concerned, there's
no turning back. "Why would you ever want to use paper?
Anything that you do on a paper form is much easier on a
handheld computer using point and click technology. The
more you use it, the more opportunities you find."
Building Applications Quickly
Visual
CE (from SYWARE, Inc., www.syware.com) allows users to quickly
build forms and database applications for Pocket PCs and
Windows CE handhelds using drag & drop controls. The
intuitive design functions have allowed Lawton to create
handheld applications without a major development effort.
Visual CE synchronizes with any ODBC data source, allowing
data to be readily exchanged between handheld devices and
a central database application. Tables can be created in
Microsoft Access on a desktop PC and downloaded to Visual
CE on the handheld to provide content for drop-down lists
on an electronic form.
"Now we can create a form and get
it deployed on a handheld network so quickly that it's amazing,"
adds Lawton. His first application, which tracks pharmacy
consults, took a total of six hours to build. The second,
for managing customer service, took one hour, and the third,
for tracking medication usage, took only 30 minutes. While
these applications are relatively simple one-page forms,
they more than meet the needs of Lawton and his department.
"I found that creating forms using
Visual CE is absolutely painless, even for someone who finds
the process somewhat intimidating," Lawton explains.
"Even though I'm very Access naïve, it was easy
to build a one-dimensional table and upload it to Visual
CE. Then I created a form on my desktop, dragged the fields
into place, and added some drop-downs and radio buttons.
I uploaded the form to the handhelds and we were ready to
go."
The Pharmacy department is using
Compaq iPACs and HP Journadas handheld devices, which Lawton
selected for their high processing speed and memory. He
also wanted a Windows-based platform, since the department
staff all use Windows on their desktops. As a result, Lawton
reports that the learning curve was virtually nil. "Traditionally,
when I have tried to implement new technology, folks would
be adverse to the changes. However, the handheld computers
are so convenient, liberating, and fun that my folks embraced
them immediately."
Consultation Management
The hospital's pharmacists now use handheld
computers and Visual CE to manage and document the consultative
services they provide to physicians and nurses. According
to Lawson, the new approach using Visual CE has made the
documentation process far more effective than using traditional
paper forms. Where it used to take 3-4 minutes to complete
a consultation, it can now be done in seconds. "Just
point and click on the fields you need to build, and you've
got your consult."
The role of the hospital pharmacist
differs from that of the traditional retail pharmacist.
While doctor prescribe the medication, pharmacists are the
experts in monitoring medication therapy, particularly the
interactions that can occur when patients are taking multiple
medications. The hospital pharmacist manages a patient's
medication therapy as part of the medical team. They may
recommend adjustments based on the patient's weight, age,
or physical condition. They also have expert knowledge of
what factors to monitor while the patient is taking the
medication.
If the pharmacist makes an adjustment
to a patient's medication therapy, the change must be documented
in order to ensure continuity of care. Traditionally, these
consults have been done using paper forms This is a labor-intensive
exercise: writing forms by hand takes time, and when you're
in a busy hospital setting, time is at a premium. There
is a natural tendency to put it off, leading to potential
miscommunication between pharmacists from one shift to the
next as well as between pharmacists, physicians, and nurses.
Next Page