Medical Equipment Inventory & Location

System

Al YarosTomer PeledKobi Ruham

Topics Background Problem domain Our solution System Main features System architecture

Top Level architectureSystem componentsSoftware architecture Implementation Advantages

UI Screen shots Technologies

1. Now days locating and tracking equipment at the hospitals is a major problem.

2. Hospital logistics became more complicated during the last years through the progress of medical science (i.e. biomedical engineering).New and expensive equipment are purchased by the hospitals, which need to be managed in an efficient way.

Background

1. Current hospital equipment management are inefficient and require manual processes.

2. The situation of a nurse looking urgently for an infusion pump or other medical device while a multitude of those are lying “secretly” in a neighboring section is a known picture.

3. Common used equipment is distributed unevenly between various department with different needs.

4. Hospital equipment theft \ Lost – awareness for stolen hospital equipment is usually discovered on critical times even though it could be discovered earlier.

Problem Domain

1. Labor costs - The hospital staff spends roughly 10% of shipment time looking for some sort of critical equipment.

2. Time lost during medical procedures on searching available equipment.

3. Increased inventory costs - purchase or rent more equipment due to lack of availability - caused by poor management tools.

4. Wrong Verification of a product - Use the wrong equipment. (medicine etc).

The implications

5. High Equipment Wear due to unbalanced use.i.e. one cart is traveling between rooms numerous number of times, while other available carts are laying unused.

6. Staff frustration with operational inefficiencies.7. Loss - Of critical And\Or Expensive equipment.

In this era of severe budget constraints these

problems should receive increased attentionAnd implementation of efficient systems is

critical.

The implications

A System that will use the ScanTask mobile solution of cellular bar-code readers to accomplish an availability (inventory and location) system for medical equipment in hospital facilities.

Proposed Solution –Towards A Smart Hospital

1. Each Item will be coded with a unique barcode and can be in one of the following status:

In Use Available Damage.

2. Each room will be coded with a unique barcode.

3. Each user will be equipped with barcode reader glove and a mobile phone both wirelessly paired.

4. The mobile allows him to change item status or location. i.e. scanning the room and the ECG cart when entering the surgery room.

System Usage

The system Tracks the location of each tagged item.

The system Tracks the tagged item current Status. Each of the tagged items current Status & Location

are accessible to the users at all levels through the mobile Or Desktop Clients.

Business Value Reports \ Data analysis - The system will support the Hospital manger & administrator decision making process by allowing them to produce series of business reports from the data that was gathered by the system. i.e. Item Yearly Review Report Lookup failures for department Report

System Main Features

The system architecture is A client-server based on 4 layers:Layer 1: Database

Layer 2: Web Service\Application Server

Layer 3: 2 Types of UI clients

Layer 4: Item Identification Device (barcode reader)

Top level Architecture

Web Service

Barcode Reader (glove)

Mobile ClientApplication Server

Database Server

Desktop Client

ScanTask Bar code reader The barcode reader device which will be worn on

the nurse's hand. The device has the ability to read barcode notes

and deliver them to the paired mobile client over Bluetooth channel.

Mobile client A regular cellular phone, with a client application

installed on it. The client application will serve as a gateway for

the barcode to communicate with the system. It will also be a mobile UI with a basic query

engine that will have the ability to generate queries and receive answer from the web server.

System Components

Desktop Client Second client application which is an extended

version of the mobile client with more advanced UI and query engine capabilities such as BI Reports and administrative abilities

The application will be deployed with ClickOnce technology which simulates web Style application with a normal "localhost" application.

Web Server\Application Server The web server is an xml based web service. It is the main communication junction between

the client and database server. It is also contains the Business Logic Processing

engine.

System Components

Database Server The database server will be a dedicated service

that will provide a database service to our system.

System Components

System Software Architecture

Loose coupling between layers That Allows More Business Flexibility i.e. The system UI implementation are separated from business logic

engine component which gives the ability to change system orientation from hospitals to any other industry quite easily

Database independence - DB can be changed from mySql to MS Sql server \ Oracle etc due to Architecture and ORM usage at the Server Data Layer.

Another example is the item identification hardware - At the moment the system works with barcode reader but easily can be changed to any other hardware device such RFID etc.

Interoperability with other ERP Services The system server can be consumed by clients on other platforms even

in different development languages (Support for any language) & environments.

Anytime – Anywhere \ Internet friendliness the system is highly accessible from any place at any time under security

limitations (Login, User validation etc...).

Implementation Advantages

Ease of maintenance{Must important aspect - Through maintainability, you can achieve anything else at any time. Security , Performance , Usability , Testability etc.}

Maintaining High Availability By Minimizing downtime upon maintenance Actions \ Version Upgrade With Strong update mechanism.

i.e. The desktop client is automatically updating upon launch, In cases of maintenance or version upgrade one's only need to update the server and the clients will be updated at launch without any manual intervention. (With exception to changes made at the mobile client code itself).

Because each layer is independent of the other layers, updates or changes can be carried out without affecting the application as a whole.

Scalability the system can scale Out and clients can work with more then one

server easily.

Implementation Advantages

Mobile UI

Desktop client UI

The Desktop Client was developed in .NET C#

The Mobile Client was developed in Java Micro Edition using Sprint Wireless Toolkit and LWUIT library.

The Web Service was developed in Java and deployed over Apache tomcat with Axis2 package.

The Web Service data layer is based on ORM (object relational mapping) package - Hibernate.

The Database platform is MySql.

Technologies

Team MembersTomer Peled

Al Yaros

Kobi Ruham

Academic AdvisorProfessor Ehud Gudes

Technical AdvisorDoron Darmon

Yuri Magrisso

Teaching AssistantMr. Boris Rozenberg