Medicine's Not a Desk Job

Doctors and nurses move from room to room and floor to floor, frequently practice in more than one location, and occasionally visit patients at home. They scribble notes as they go, all of which eventually, in the best of all possible worlds, need to be entered into a computer for later reference.

Medical Communications Systems has put together hand-held systems and wireless networks for group practices. A patient checks in with a bar code card, which automatically pulls up any existing information onto the receptionist's desktop screen. The patient answers the u sual questions about why he or she is seeing the doctor, allergies, and former illnesses. Later, the doctor accesses that same information on a hand-held computer -- usually a Fujitsu tablet connected via a Proxim wireless network -- and enters diagnostic notes into the system. The application is menu-driven and doesn't use handwriting recognition, which is still unreliable, says Saleem Desai , MCS's president.

You can integrate the software, which MCS writes itself, with a custom billing module or existing Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems to reduce administrative work and improve access to data. The company can customize the application to accommodate different types of doctors. An entire system with desktops and hand-held devices for three to four users would cost about $25,000.

MCS is working with partners in the defense industry and elsewhere to develop full-motion video on hand-held computers and pattern recognition. With full-mo tion video, a doctor could interpret a CAT scan or MRI on a hand-held device, or paramedics in an ambulance could consult doctors remotely. Such a product might be available in two years, Desai estimates.

The company is also researching using computers to recognize patterns and count cells in pathology slides, pap smears, and blood tests. Pattern recognition won't replace physicians, who are necessary to diagnose illnesses, but it could replace some technicians and improve accuracy, Desai says. The technology will need FDA approval and might be available in three to five years.

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Saleem Desai

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"Hand-held computers can reduce ad ministrative work and improve access to data."