Improving communication among nurses and patients

Mehmet S Unluturk; Mehmet H Ozcanhan; Gokhan Dalkilic

doi:10.1016/j.cmpb.2015.04.004

Improving communication among nurses and patients

Comput Methods Programs Biomed. 2015 Jul;120(2):102-12. doi: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2015.04.004. Epub 2015 Apr 20.

Authors

Mehmet S Unluturk¹, Mehmet H Ozcanhan², Gokhan Dalkilic²

Affiliations

¹ Izmir University of Economics, Department of Software Engineering, Izmir, Turkey. Electronic address: suleyman.unluturk@ieu.edu.tr.
² Dokuz Eylul University, Department of Computer Engineering, Izmir, Turkey.

PMID: 25935361
DOI: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2015.04.004

Abstract

Patients use nurse call systems to signal nurses for medical help. Traditional push button-flashing lamp call systems are not integrated with other hospital automation systems. Therefore, nurse response time becomes a matter of personal discretion. The improvement obtained by integrating a pager system into the nurse call systems does not increase care efficiency, because unnecessary visits are still not eliminated. To obtain an immediate response and a purposeful visit by a nurse; regardless of the location of nurse in hospital, traditional systems have to be improved by intelligent telephone system integration. The results of the developed Nurse Call System Software (NCSS), the Wireless Phone System Software (WPSS), the Location System Software (LSS) and the communication protocol are provided, together with detailed XML message structures. The benefits of the proposed system are also discussed and the direction of future work is presented.

Keywords: Asynchronous events; Nurse call systems; Real-time location; Socket communication; Software polling.

MeSH terms

Cell Phone
Communication*
Humans
Nurse-Patient Relations*