Wireless Solution of the Future: the Electronic Clipboard

Wireless solutions put forward for hospitals by Hewlett-Packard, IBM and others will take the pens out of doctors' hands and replace them with the stylus of the handheld device.

Although such solutions vary in their details, the basic strategy is very similar. A handheld device connects to a hospitalwide data server, which serves as a repository for patients' medical records. When doctors examine patients, they will make notes not on paper charts but on their handheld devices, instantly updating patient records. Nurses also will be able to access "charts" through their own wireless

devices.

The devices will provide a degree of privacy for the patient, and the ability to immediately compare doctors' directions to stored records could save lives by catching conflicts in medications that could have otherwise been missed due to misplaced documents or the infamous bad penmanship of doctors.

Security policies will limit data access to doctors, nurses and other qualified personnel. HP's approach uses a geographically aware device that "senses" which patient the physician is visiting and instantly call up the charts for that patient.

A recent trend in hospital administration toward the use of "dumb" terminals with authentication capabilities means that the data infrastructure for the wireless services is already in place in some facilities. Analysts say that within two years, wireless devices in doctors' coats could become as common as the stethoscopes around their necks.