DIGITAL Clipboard.PDA-toting doctors at a bedside near you The clipboard may be an icon of medical shows on TV, but over at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a world-renowned hospital located in Los Angeles, California. History Cedars-Sinai is the result of a merger in 1961 between two major Los Angeles hospitals, Cedars of Lebanon and Mount Sinai Home for the Incurables, with Steve Broidy as , where the real stars are treated, the clipboard is going the way of the quill pen. The hospital has developed what it says is the first wireless medical records system in the nation. Using the Palm Pilot's operating system for the Palm VII, it allows retrieval of archived, up-to-the-minute patient records, including flow sheets and dictated reports. Graphical records such as MRI 1. (application) MRI - Magnetic Resonance Imaging. 2. MRI - Measurement Requirements and Interface. scans can't fit on the tiny screen, but doctors can get them online via the hospital's Web-based data repository. Cedars-Sinai has been getting calls from hospitals across the nation eager to duplicate the system. Here's a quick overview of how it works. * The system is secure. Access is a no-go unless a doctor has an approved user ID and password, which is entered with the PDA's stylus. The signal is encrypted and away it goes via the nationwide PalmNet Network, actually a set of reserved frequencies on BellSouth's paging network. * Moving at 8 kilobits per second (unit) kilobits per second - (kbps, kb/s) A unit of data rate where 1 kb/s = 1000 bits per second. This contrasts with units of storage where 1 Kb = 1024 bits (note upper case K). , the signal is captured by a PalmNet proxy server and passes through to a secure Cedars-Sinai Web server protected from hackers by a firewall. * The secure Web server (1) A server on the Web that supports one or more of the major security protocols such as SSL, SHTTP and PCT. This means that order form data from your browser is encrypted before being sent (uploaded) to the Web site, making it extremely difficult for a third party to decipher can access data from 20 different hospital databases, with more on the way. That means liver function, renal flowsheets and even hourly "snapshots" of selected vital signs for intensive care patients are available. * The selected data is transmitted back to the Palm Pilot, where it is downloaded by the PDA's "Clipper" Web browser The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. , which formats the data into bite-size pieces just right for the miniature screen. Scrolling down through the application brings whole consultation reports to a doctor's fingertips "Fingertips" is a 1963 number-one hit single recorded live by "Little" Stevie Wonder for Motown's Tamla label. Wonder's first hit single, "Fingertips" was the first live, non-studio recording to reach number-one on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in the United States. . Speed, portability and access to a vast amount of data are all well and good, but there are practical considerations that can only be brought to light though the system's application. And doctors say that, while the metal building on the Cedars-Sinai campus can interfere with signal reception and it's hard to read long flow sheets at times because of screen resolution, they are still embracing the technology. "Doctors think it's a miracle It's a Miracle was a television show that aired on PAX-TV (now Independent Television) between September 6, 1998 and September 1, 2004.[1] Initially hosted by Richard Thomas[2], and later by Roma Downey, [3] ," says Dr. M. Michael Shabot, the hospital's medical director for information systems. |
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