markleeds wrote on Tuesday, May 16, 2006:
I read somewhere here that there is work in progress on a pda interface. Is that correct?
I would be interested in getting involved with that.
Thanks!
Mark
markleeds wrote on Thursday, May 18, 2006:
While waiting for a response, I wrote a simple php page which has the functionality of the report page, but in simple, straightforward code, all in one file. It is very pda/phone friendly.
The problem is that it bypasses the login/session mechanism.
For some reason, login doesn’t work for me on my phone browser, so I left it out. I do use login at the server level, so it’s not that critical for me.
By preloading pma_bookmark with some really good queries, you can get all the data you need this way.
I’ll put it at http://www.drleeds.com/files/pda.php
Just stick in your openemr directory and point your browser at it. Path to sqlconf.php is hard coded, so adjust accordingly.
drbowen wrote on Thursday, May 18, 2006:
Ballards has been working on a new user interface which we hope will become version 3.0. This interface should a lot friendlier to PDAs than the current code. This includes a new form interface that he believes will help improve the form customization process for technical users.
You might want to e-mail him privately and check on progress.
Sam Bowen, MD
markleeds wrote on Thursday, May 18, 2006:
Thanks for the info.
It’s not easy to be friendly to a 240x240 and a 1024x768 screen at the same time.
I’ll email him and ask him about what he’s working on.
Thanks again!
Mark
sankar1234 wrote on Thursday, May 18, 2006:
I second Mark’s opinion. But one can select what functionality to be provided on the PDA. Obviously, drug interaction or lookup is a great functionality. Or looking up what ptients are visiting the clinic today.
One thing I am working on : hospital rounds. Several physicians have requested the option with ICD or cpt code input. They can easily transfer that to the billing department for quick billing instead of waiting for the week.
I also suggested to OPenEMR community to create a text file of the HPI/Encouter/PSFH/ROS. This text file could be easily transferred to the PDA for quick review for physicians on call. Though I have a standalone Palm application, I plan to use this for integrating with the EMR. But due to lack of time, I am hold.
Unfortunately, I was not able to customize the OpenEMR (for wireless application) primarily due to my lack of understanding. But it is doable.
hope that helps.
-sankar
-Sankar
markleeds wrote on Friday, May 19, 2006:
Sankar,
My simple setup for doing database queries via a simple report page as described above is proving to be very useful already.
This afternoon, I left the office early. While I was waiting in line someplace, I did a query with my phone browser to view my encounters of the day. I have a preset query for listing the patient and form_encounter information for a particular date range or just for the current day.
I was reminded that we were waiting for a radiologist to call back regarding an x-ray and I was able to call the office to handle the necessary communications. Normally, this might have taken an extra day and inconvenienced the patient for the simple reason that I forgot a detail of one of many patient encounters.
I should explain my network connection. I am using EVDO with a Treo 700w on the Verizon network. This might not be available in all areas. I don’t know how good reception might be in the hospital.
I will work on a simple, pda interface for looking up codes and entering them in the billing table to do what you are looking for. This could be useful for me too. My previous employer was always having trouble getting me to submit codes for hospital rounds. I would lose them on index cards or pieces of paper. Now, I am not in the hospital much, but I could use it in the office if I can get a pda to connect to the wireless router. My old Dell pda does wifi, but I need it to connect with wpa encryption.
markleeds wrote on Monday, May 22, 2006:
Maybe I jumped too soon into bypassing the login, logging, and session features of OpenEMR. The problem was that my phone browser (Internet Explorer for Pocket PC) was not working with it. I could not get past the login. Probably a javascript problem.
I discovered today that Opera is the ultimate mobile browser. I was able to easily use the full version of OpenEMR in Opera. Of course, the limited screen real estate makes using it regularly unrealistic, but I used to use a program that made it possible to work with higher resolution desktops on the small screen. If that works out, it would be very cool if the full program, as is, can be used from the pda/phone. Even if not, Opera makes it easily possible to use all of the existing code and maybe just re-arrange some screens to work better on the small screen.
markleeds wrote on Monday, May 22, 2006:
OK, I did the test, running OpenEMR successfully at full resolution on a pda phone.
The phone is a Palm Treo 700w, running Windows Mobile version 5 with the Opera browser for Pocket PC and a program from Nyditot for simulating higher resolution desktops on the small screen.
Without any problem at all, I was able to sign into my account, look up a patient and read old encounters. I entered data for a new encounter also.
I set the virtual resolution to 1080x1080. I also tried 960x960 and 840x840. You can set the height and width to different settings, but since this device has a square screen, I kept height and width the same. You have a choice with Nyditot to either fit to screen or scroll around the larger desktop with a special floating tool. Fit to screen is unusable at very high resolutions because you cannot read anything and you can barely click on anything because everything is so small. Once you get used to the scroll tool, you can get around pretty quickly and easily. You can instantly jump to any of the four corners, or you can scroll up, down, left and right.
The first problem I came across was that if there was a network problem, I had to jump all over the screen to find the error message or to see what the loading progress was. Our EVDO network with Verizon is not reliable enough for this sort of work where we need to be able to jump from link to link with minimal delay. Second, the pda crashed twice during my short test. It seems that Opera gets overwhelmed by large, complex sites. I don’t know if Nyditot also contributed to either of the crashes.
I finished my test with frustration and a headache. Opera is a good browser because it seems to properly implement javascript and, in most cases, works fine. To be usable, we will almost certainly need an alternate interface for the pda. Everything does not need to be duplicated. Just things you would actually do from a pda. Like ‘capturing charges’ and viewing reports (preset queries). For in-office use, I would recommend wifi rather than EVDO or whatever other mobile phone internet service you might have. I can’t afford to make patients wait because of a slow network when I’m standing in my own office.