Mobile documentation with integrated PDAs – a real world example

Abstract

Different solutions have been proposed by both manufacturers and institutions to tackle the ever-growing problem of documentation in the hospital. With the arrival of mobile technology new solutions are developed to support medical staff in their daily work. meditrace is a PDA-based, integrated system, permitting to document medical findings at the patient's bedside. The first pilot installation is running since 2002 in a ward for internal medicine of a German hospital. We first present an overview regarding the documentation issue and the meditrace product itself. Then we report about the pilot installation. We give details about integration, expectations, problems and success followed by a short outlook concerning possible future development.