Using Patient Information Systems for Primary Health care in Hospitals – Implications for Data Structures and User Interaction

Research has shown that implementing information systems in hospital wards is notoriously difficult, regardless of the amount of resources used. This paper reports findings from ongoing efforts to adapt a software solution designed for primary care, to support practices and protocols around intensive care in a hospital ward. Practices and protocols include patient admission and discharge, calculation of medicine doses, and hourly monitoring of patients' vitals and medication. Experimental results show that, configuring the system for patient admission and discharge was rather straight forward, except a work-around had to be done in the data model. Calculation of medicine doses was also implemented. On the other hand, using the software solution for the hourly monitoring and medication of patients was impossible, as this required a tablet at each bedside, with custom developed user interaction.