They create a touch screen for patients that improves hospital efficiency

The Valencian telecommunications company Tecatel has developed a multimedia application that integrates patient data, the necessary medical devices and the entertainment of those hospitalized in a single device and which is already operational in five Spanish hospitals.

The Spanish company of systems and services for digital television Tecatel has launched, through the Telcatel IPTV division, ‘Telcatel Medip’, an antibacterial touch screen to offer entertainment to hospitalized patients and that allows medical staff to access the patient's medical history, a technology that improves management efficiency and is already operational in five Spanish hospitals. The touch screen is installed using an articulated arm, of 19 inches, “at the foot of the bed” and can adapt to the patient's position, even for people with disabilities.

The screen offers, on the one hand, entertainment services (radio, TDT, internet browsing, email, games or e-books) to the patient so that he has “the same functions as at home” in an environment of comfort and losing “the feeling of isolation”. On the other hand, allows medical staff (doctors and nurses), through cards with encrypted code, access patient data: your medical history, medical tests or analysis results electronically “without having to carry the history under your arm”, the director of IPTV told Efe (Internet Protocol Television) of the company, Carlos Moro. It also enables applications for room maintenance management and in this area, Optimize times for the staff in charge of this function.

The screen can be equipped with a digital video camera (webcam) to monitor patients and the hospital's computer system can be integrated to transfer medical data. The center can incorporate value-added services such as satisfaction surveys into technology, menu choice, informed consent or visit schedules. Five Spanish hospitals already have this device, one of them for a year, and another will equip their beds with the system, while new hospital construction projects intend to apply this technology, according to the Tecatel manager.

“There is a trend in the European Union to integrate the entire medical history so that the patient's data can be accessible from another hospital, also from abroad”, according to More, who adds that there is discussion about the appropriate device. In this sense, ensures that laptops, Tablets and PDAs have a battery problem “and they go from hand to hand” while the articulated arm that holds the screen is permanently connected to the hospital's computer network and the electrical network.