The Customer
A large hospital group based in Dallas, U.S.A., with distributed operations all over the state of Texas.

The Challenge
Operations in a hospital are scheduled centrally. It was required to create an application that would run on an anesthesiologist's handheld, and interface with the central system to get details of scheduled operations, and the associated patient information. It would then allow them to document an operation in progress, specifying all the details of the procedures performed on them. When an operation is completed, the handheld device could be synchronized once again with the central server, in order to store the entire operation information for interface with the hospital documentation and billing systems.

The Solution
A holistic approach was adopted in implementing the project, and the entire data transport layer from the central server to the handheld devices, was implemented using the Analytica Mobile Framework. Applications were built on top of this secure framework, thus slashing the time and the effort for the development of the entire system.

The mobile application was then designed in close collaboration with a small group of test users. The process for identifying and selecting procedure ID's was optimized to allow the easiest possible access on the small handheld screen. Multiple selection levels (starting with the service type) were designed in order to keep the selection list within manageable limits.

This handheld device, based on the Microsoft Windows CE operating system, allowed the anesthesiologist to quickly and intuitively enter all the operation information, including the anesthesia code, unplanned procedures if any, qualifying circumstances, and other operation details.

A desktop application was also designed to allow the anesthesiologist to "synchronize" the handheld. This transferred all (recorded) operation details to the handheld, and also to the central hospital repository. It also transferred new (scheduled) cases to the anesthesiologist's handheld.

The use of the Analytica Mobile framework and a component-based development methodology enabled the first phase of this large project to be completed on schedule in only 4 months, allowing the customer to go live almost immediately. Subsequently the remaining phases of the project were developed and delivered.