Supporting Collaborative Healthcare Using Palcom - The Itacih System

Healthcare is increasingly a collaborative effort involving caregivers from several different organizations providing services to the same patient. This is particularly the case in care for the elderly and chronically ill, where a preference for care in the home is common. Current systems lack support for care scenarios that require mobility and intra-organizational collaboration. This results in an inefficient work situation that relies on old technologies - paper notes, phones calls, fax - for communication, which ultimately threaten the medical safety of patients. In this paper we present a system designed for this collaborative situation covering both mobile work in a single organization (home care) and collaboration across organizations, as well as connecting devices to people. Although developed as part of a research project, the use of participatory design and iterative development has resulted in early adoption of the system which is now in professional use by both the participating hospital and municipality.