The digital patient push - using location to streamline the surgical journey

Abstract

This paper introduces a patient information management system that uses location tracking of WiFi tagged patients to provide reliable and up-to-date patient information for surgical processes and other clinical sessions. Such a system could eliminate human error in patient identification (saving lives) and enhance hospital resource utilisation. The paper also describes how the information is secured during the dissemination and manipulation processes in the distributed and wireless environments. The system design has addressed several technical challenges such as service assurance, location awareness and security, which leads to a multi-mode (pull, push and combination) and highly available information system for hospital resource and patient management.