The QoS Dream Project - the Intelligent Hospital
Hospital clinicians deal with many patients in different locations and
perform many different vital roles and functions. The aim of the QoS DREAM
project is to build an experimental 'intelligent hospital' where computers
have a real sense of what is going on and respond to the activities of
clinicians.
Above all, clinicians must be available at all times, a requirement that
currently relies on paging systems. QoS DREAM stands for Quality of Service
for Dynamically REconfigurable and Adaptable Multimedia. In a QoS DREAM
hospital, not only will the location of clinicians be known automatically,
but they will have rapid access to powerful hospital resources ranging
from patient information to live video links - wherever they are. For
example, real time images of a patient and their vital signs data can
be displayed along with medical records, while clinicians at different
sites discuss a diagnosis using a remote multimedia link.
Screenshot from a demonstrator application.
Location information is at the heart of the system through small wearable
Active Badges that emit unique infra-red signals, picked up by sensors
throughout the hospital. In addition, high-bandwidth networks will link
rooms equipped with cameras, microphones, loudspeakers and displays. When
the clinician moves around the hospital, he or she may want to have continuous
visual access to information about intensive care patients. And since
the system knows where the member of staff is at any time, it can deliver
this information to the nearest display.
If an expert opinion is sought urgently, clinicians can engage in a video
conference that continues from room to room by making the video images
and sound simply 'follow' the participants around. Furthermore, medical
students or other relevant parties can accompany the clinician as virtual
observers, avoiding the common sight of large groups of people in white
coats huddled around an anxious patient.
The project is in the early stages but the team at the LCE is already
working with staff at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge and it is hoped
to develop a trial system for evaluation next year. Underlying the project
are two innovative technologies: event-driven programming and dynamic
media distribution. Event-driven programming is a fast and simple method
of writing software by tying together independent programs over a network.
Programs ask to be 'notified' whenever interesting events occur in other
programs and this triggers them to take some action. Dynamic media distribution
provides audio and video links with guaranteed quality across conventional
computer networks and the links are re-configured smoothly as users move
from point to point.
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