Tablets good for healthcare staff

By RICHARD WOOD

A South Auckland Maori health provider is carrying out the first local trials of Linux-based Tablet computers to gather health information at clients' homes and communicate wirelessly with base.

Dubbed the "Aquapad", the Tablets used by Turuki Healthcare are basically flat A4-sized screens without keyboards, although one can be plugged in if required.

Turuki is using 15 Aquapads as part of a pilot of the Government's Hawaiiki intervention programme aimed at improving the health of people in lower socio-economic areas who are classified as high-risk.

Turuki chief operating officer Ramari Slattery said the organisation felt that "in order to have a cutting-edge pilot we needed a cutting-edge technology".

"We believe we needed an IT system that keeps people out in the community but is able to draw down as much information as required to do their job."

Using the system, provided by IT integrator Asterisk and Cogent Communications, health data can be called up wirelessly and additional data collected and wired back.

No data remains on the Tablets, avoiding the danger that sensitive personal information will be on devices if they are lost or stolen. The data being sent and received is also encrypted.

Slattery said laptop computers, which were considered, created a barrier between the client and the health worker that could be overcome by using Tablets.

"These are quite unobtrusive when going into a person's home. They can sit on your lap. They are not flashy Machines; they are very straightforward.

"The last thing you want to do is fold out a laptop in front of people's faces and start entering data."

Beyond the Hawaiiki programme, Turuki is providing all its 45 staff with Aquapads, starting with the Well Child team. Slattery said having a child's data at hand would avoid problems such as double immunisation.

From a management and financial perspective, the system was exceptionally good value and allowed more accurate data, she said.

The 15 Aquapads now deployed were allowing staff to do an extra visit a day because data was entered on the spot once only.

"Field workers can do four or five visits a day and then come in and write reports for all those visits.

"Entering in the data in the field provides greater accuracy." The ratio of time in the field to time in the office had improved from 60/40 or 70/30 to 80/20, said Slattery.

"We could even maybe push that up a few more notches."

A Tablet features a keyboard on the touch-sensitive screen for typing in data, by finger if necessary.

Aquapads cost under the budgeted $3500 each, including GPRS cellular communication cards. The free Open Office suite is used for office applications.

Back at the office the Aquapads plug into cradles to operate as regular computers running Windows-based software.

Asterisk's Firefly-X thin-client technology is used to connect to a Microsoft terminal server.

The Aquapads can access the internet in the field but this has been switched off due to the cost of GPRS communication.

The entire Tablet trial and IT infrastructure to support it, including client management system, has cost the provider $100,000. The organisation also upgraded its phone system.

Turuki operates in the Mangere area and has a number of contracts with the Ministry of Health covering areas such as GP services, child health, pregnancy, breastfeeding, disease management, multiple health issues, and diabetes.