On the potential of personal networks for hospitals

Objective: Today, there are many barriers that prevent seamless electronic voice and data communication with remote content and services that the user wants to access at a certain time and place. This is especially the case in hospitals, where the communication needs are very complex and context dependent, and where strict privacy and safety conditions apply. Personal network (PN) technology is expected to enable the various private networks of a single person to communicate seamlessly with each other, hiding underlying network complexity from the user. We have analyzed the usefulness of PNs in hospitals. Methods: We studied the use case of a medical emergency surgery, and built a demonstrator by integrating models of the specialists' personal area networks, home networks, office networks, and a hospital network into a single virtual network. We performed user studies in various hospitals, using a combination of individual context interviews, scenario and requirements verification, guided experimenting with the demonstrator and concluding workshops. Results: We show that, in case of medical emergencies, PNs can provide a means to enlist remote assistance from peers wherever they are in the world at a particular moment. It can also ease the communication between the operating theatre and the outside world, e.g. for educational purposes.