Cura comfort

A study conducted by RIZIV claimed only 5% of the health-care providers keep patient files. Cura Comfort is the solution for this problem by allowing the health-care providers to access patient files using a simple netbook.

Cura Comfort is solely intended for the healthcare world. By allowing remote access to patient files, health-care providers have the possibility to alter patient files at the patient’s home, without the need for a network connection. The changed data can be synchronized with the central PC by means of simple communication methods like email or a USB flash drive. This creates a secure workspace in which the carer can carry out his/her tasks.

At startup the health-care provider is presented with three options, providing an easy way of navigating between the different functionalities.

• Care planning. Care planning gives the carer a detailed overview providing the necessary information allowing him/her to successfully carry out treatments. By making use of day to day displays, care planning allows for an easy to use schedule overview giving the health-care provider the possibility to manage his/her daily planning.

• Patient management. This part of Cura Comfort is aimed at the management of patient files. The health-care provider can manage the patient file in two ways, by means of the evaluation screen or by editing the patient file itself. The evaluation screen allows the health-care provider to edit a patient file, depending on given treatments, in a quick and easy way without having to go through the whole file. Patient management allows the health-care provider to view other files of a certain patient, created by other health-care providers.

• Synchronization

  • Central Synchronization. Cura Comfort uses a central PC which contains patient files of all health-care providers. By means of a one-way connection to the Cura database, the central pc is allowed to retrieve all information concerning patients for a given period of time. The central PC provides the netbooks with the data needed for a certain health-care provider, by creating export files.

  • Local Synchronization.Local Synchronization allows the health-care provider to import the export files provided by the central PC and create export files. These export files contain new/updated data on patients that needs to be uploaded to the Central PC.

Since user usability was of top priority for this project, user input was reduced to the minimum. This allows a health-care provider to carry out different tasks with the least possible input. Cura Comfort provides an easy to use graphical user interface that allows the user to gradually complete different tasks. This look and feel, based on templates generated by Vidyano, ensures a clear guideline throughout the application, which contributes to the usability of Cura Comfort.

Vidyano’s modular design allows the developer to easily integrate Cura Comfort into the Cura application, when Cura would be upgraded using the .NET 3.5 technology. By using these modules as building blocks, Vidyano supports extensible applications which can easily be integrated in other applications with a minimum of code changes. Using Vidyano the developers were able to build the application in a short period, while making use of the latest technologies .NET 3.5 has to offer.

Bart Wuyts is an “Applied Computer Science Bachelor” graduate student, attending his third year of education at Artesis university college of Antwerp.