mWard is a project whose purpose is to enhance
existing clinical and administrative decision support and to
consider mobile computers, connected via wireless network,
for bringing clinical information to the point of care.
The mWard project allowed a limited number of users to
test and evaluate a selected range of mobile-wireless
infrastructure and mobile health care computing devices at
the neuroscience ward at Southern Health’s Monash
Medical Centre, Victoria, Australia. Before the project
commenced, the ward had two PC’s which were used as
terminals by all ward-based staff and numerous multidisciplinary
staff who visited the ward each day. The first
stage of the research, outlined in this paper, evaluates a
selected range of mobile-wireless infrastructure.