Point of Care Healthcare Quality Control for Patients Using Mobile Devices
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Technological University Dublin ARROW@TU Dublin Masters Science 2006-01-01 Point of Care Healthcare Quality Control for Patients Using Mobile Devices Owen Lynch Technological University Dublin Follow this and additional works at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/scienmas Part of the Environmental Health and Protection Commons Recommended Citation Lynch, O. (2006). Point of care healthcare qualty control for patients using mobile devices. Masters dissertation. Technological University Dublin. doi:10.21427/D7SC85 This Theses, Masters is brought to you for free and open access by the Science at ARROW@TU Dublin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters by an authorized administrator of ARROW@TU Dublin. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License Point of Care Healthcare Quality Control For Patients Using Mobile Devices Owen Lynch BE School of Control Systems and Electrical Engineering, Dublin Institute of Technology A thesis presented to Dublin Institute of Technology, Faculty of Engineering For the degree of Master of Philosophy (MPhil) January 2006 Research Supervisors: Mr. John McGrory Dr. Eugene Coyle Dr. Mike Murphy Abstract Abstract The advances made in the domain of mobile telecommunications over the last decade offer great potential for developments in many areas. One such area that can benefit from mobile communications is telemedicine, which is the provision of medical assistance, in one form or another, to patients who are geographically separated from the healthcare provider. When a person is ill, individual attention from medical professionals is of the utmost importance until they have returned to full health. However, people who suffer with long term and chronic illnesses may need life long care and often must manage their condition at home. Many chronically ill patients manage their condition themselves and perform ‘self-testing’ with Point of Care Test (POCT) equipment as part of this condition management. When a specimen sample is analysed at home with a POCT device, a result is available to the patient almost immediately, but the result cannot be proven to be plausible for the patient unless it is validated by the hospital systems. In addition to this the hospital is unaware of the patients condition and progress between hospital visits. This research addresses some of the issues and problems that face patients who use POCT equipment to ‘self-manage’ their condition at home. Using mobile phone technologies and the Java platform, three alternative methods for providing patients with a service of POCT result validation and storage were designed. The implementation and test of these systems, proves that a mobile phone solution to the issues associated with patient self-testing is possible and can greatly contribute to improving the quality of patient care. i Declaration Declaration I certify that this thesis which I now submit for examination for the award of MPhil, is entirely my own work and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. This thesis was prepared according to the regulations for postgraduate study by research of the Dublin Institute of Technology and has not been submitted in whole or in part for an award in any other Institute or University. The work reported on in this thesis conforms to the principles and requirements of the Institute's guidelines for ethics in research. The Institute has permission to keep, to lend or to copy this thesis in whole or in part, on condition that any such use of the material of the thesis be duly acknowledged. Signature: __________________________________ Owen Lynch Date: 9th January 2006 ii Acknowledgements Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people without whose help and support I would have had great difficulty completing this research. Mr. John McGrory, my project supervisor, for his guidance and assistance over the course of the project and Dr. Eugene Coyle and Dr. Mike Murphy for their helpful criticism during the writing of this thesis. Maggie and my family for their constant support, advice and understanding. Also, I would like to thank my colleagues in the research department namely Will, Dan, Eileen, Jim, Mark, Niall, Pauline and Sharon for always being happy to discuss a problem even if they didn’t know the solution. iii Table of Contents Table of Contents ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................I DECLARATION.......................................................................................................II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................III TABLE OF CONTENTS..........................................................................................IV LIST OF FIGURES.................................................................................................VII LIST OF TABLES.................................................................................................VIII 1 INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................1 1.1 BACKGROUND................................................................................................1 1.2 PROJECT AIM .................................................................................................2 1.3 THESIS OUTLINE ............................................................................................3 2 OVERVIEW OF TELEMEDICINE AND MEDICAL INFORMATICS........4 2.1 TELEMEDICINE...............................................................................................4 2.2 HOSPITAL AND LABORATORY COMMUNICATION .............................................5 2.2.1 Hospital Information Systems................................................................6 2.2.2 Laboratory Information Systems............................................................7 2.2.2.1 ASTM E1934....................................................................................7 2.2.2.2 Integrated Networked Clinical Analyser (INCA) [16]........................8 2.3 ELECTRONIC PATIENT RECORD (EPR)............................................................8 2.4 HEALTH LEVEL SEVEN (HL7).......................................................................10 2.5 CLINICAL ANALYSIS AND VALIDATION.........................................................12 2.5.1 Sample Acquisition and Analysis.........................................................12 2.5.2 Quality Control and Result Validation.................................................12 2.6 POINT OF CARE TESTING ..............................................................................12 2.6.1 Introduction.........................................................................................12 2.6.2 Patient Self-Testing and Home-Based POCT.......................................12 2.7 POINT OF CARE AND HOME TESTING ISSUES .................................................12 2.8 POINT OF CARE TESTING EQUIPMENT ...........................................................12 2.8.1 Handheld Blood Analysers..................................................................12 2.8.1.1 Glucose Meters (Glucometers).........................................................12 2.8.1.2 Prothrombin Time (INR) meters......................................................12 2.9 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION .......................................................................12 3 TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW.........................................................................12 3.1 MOBILE PHONE CAPABILITIES ......................................................................12 3.1.1 Mobile Handsets..................................................................................12 3.1.2 Mobile Networks..................................................................................12 3.2 MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGIES CONSIDERED...............................................12 3.2.1 Short Messaging Service......................................................................12 3.2.2 Wireless Application Protocol.............................................................12 3.3 JAVA TECHNOLOGIES ...................................................................................12 3.4 JAVA 2 MICRO EDITION................................................................................12 3.4.1 Introduction.........................................................................................12 3.4.2 Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC)...............................12 iv Table of Contents 3.4.3 The K Virtual Machine (KVM).............................................................12 3.4.4 Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP).........................................12 3.4.5 Additional API’s and Packages............................................................12 3.5 XML...........................................................................................................12 3.6 SERVER SIDE TOOLS ....................................................................................12 3.6.1 Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) [62]..............12 3.6.2 Java Servlets........................................................................................12 3.6.3 Java Web Services...............................................................................12