A Context-Aware System to Communicate Urgency Cues to Health Care Workers

Abstract

When nurses receive calls on their mobile phones, they need to decide whether to engage in the callor not. Several contextual factors play a role in making this decision. For example, if a nurse is busywith another patient when the phone rings, she is reluctant leave that patient. Research shows, forexample, that the urgency of a call is an important factor. Another important factor is the availabilityof colleagues.The objective of this thesis is to develop a proof-of-concept system that automatically, or semiautomatically, detects and communicates context clues to health care workers. The system couldutilize various information sources, such as sensors and patient records, to capture relevant contextclues. These context clues are used by the health care workers to make more informed decisions.