Supporting Pervasive Collaboration in Healthcare — An Activity-Driven Computing Infrastructure

Clinical work in modern hospitals is characterized by a high degree of mobility, frequent interruptions, and much ad hoc collaboration between colleagues with different expertise. Electronic patient record systems are typically build upon the classic client-server architectural style that has evolved to support office work that do not have these properties. In this paper, we describe clinical work and compare it with office work. This analysis leads to the conclusion that the mobile, interrupted, and ad hoc collaborative nature of clinical work is poorly supported by traditional client-server architectures and we propose an activity-driven computing infrastructure as an alternative. We outline our prototype design; argue how it supports clinical work and present initial results from testing the architecture in workshops with clinicians from Aarhus county hospital.

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