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Developing technology to prevent interruptions
2007.10.01 by Jan Fredrik Frantzen
In the middle of the operation, your pager bleeps, disturbing the rhythm of your work. Sound familiar? Researchers at Tromsø Telemedicine Laboratory are working on a way to reduce this problem.
 When you hear bleeping from the paging system at the end of the operating theatre, somebody needs your help. But the bleeping often disturbs the operation in progress, and when you get the opportunity to answer the call, the person trying to contact you may no longer be available. Of course, it does not improve the situation if you are in the middle of a difficult conversation, in which you are explaining to a patient that he has cancer or another serious illness. The last thing you need in a situation like this is shrill bleeping from your pager. One telephone for all purposes"We aim to create a telephone technology which makes it possible to use one telephone for all purposes: as a pager, as an answering machine, and – of course – as a normal telephone. Doctors should not need to go around with a whole rack of communication devices in their pockets. Instead, everything should be integrated in a single unit," says Solvoll.The idea is that the telephone sends a signal to a base, which registers the zone in which the telephone is located. If the doctor has set up the telephone to prevent calls when he or she is in the operating theatre or in a patient's room, the caller can leave a message without causing the doctor's telephone to ring. If an acute situation arises – and it is critical to get hold of the doctor – the caller will be able to get through by not hanging up and not leaving a message, but letting the telephone ring until the doctor answers. More flexible communications systemWhen the doctor is available, however, the system will let calls through. The result is a telephone system which automatically registers whether the doctor is available or not – and responds accordingly."Our aim is to use this to make communication in hospitals better and easier. Doctors will be able to work undisturbed when they need to. And it will be easier to get through on the phone when there is an opportunity for this," says Solvoll. Knut Magne Augestad is a PhD research fellow at the NST, and has worked as a doctor since 1996. With 11 years' experience in carrying a pager around at work, he sees a great need for a more flexible communications system in hospitals. "Being paged can be very distracting, especially when you are concentrating on an operation or a difficult conversation with a patient, and you get a call which could have waited a little. It would be very satisfying if we could obtain a system where, in certain situations, we could indicate that it was an unsuitable time to call. But, at the same time, it is very important to be able to get through to the doctor in an acute situation," Augestad adds. ContactsIf you would like to know more about this project, please contact Jeremiah Scholl, project manager, at mobile telephone +47 974 99 334 or PhD research fellow Terje Solvoll at mobile telephone +47 909 32 183.NST and Tromsø Telemedicine Laboratory (TTL)TTL was established in 2006 as a Centre for Research Based Innovation (SFI). The centre will combine human caring with new technologies, in order to provide better health care and reduce the increasing burden on the health care system. The Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine is the host institution for Tromsø Telemedicine Laboratory.
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