Design and implementation of a virtual assistant for healthcare professionals using pervasive computing technologiesDesign und Einführung eines virtuellen Assistenten für im Gesundheitswesen tätige Personen durch den Einsatz von ubiquitären Computertechnologien

With the advancement of hand-held devices, wireless and sensor network pervasive computing has achieved a perfect momentum. Formerly, a requirement existed that was a serious impediment and threat to the mobility of users – the necessary presence of a fixed wired network. This has been resolved by the recent advances in wireless and mobile technologies, particularly Bluetooth and WiFi. The advancement of available, portable, low cost mobile devices (PDAs, cell phones, etc.) has resulted in the user's mobility at unprecedented levels. As these devices can communicate with one another, the combined capabilities can be leveraged to form a useful new set of tools. Presently, pervasive computing is being extended into the sophisticated healthcare sector with the promise of providing an easier and more efficient mode of communication between physicians and patients or between the physicians themselves. In this paper we provide the details of our application 'Healthcare Aide', which has been designed to provide not only more convenience for doctor – doctor, resident doctor – doctor, patient – doctor and nurse – doctor interaction but also a smooth pathway for real-time decision making. Our pervasive middleware MARKS (Middleware Adaptability for Resource Discovery, Knowledge Usability and Self-healing) provides the underlying support for this application in a completely transparent manner. In this paper, we have also presented our survey results from users' point of view along with performance analysis.