An Electronic Hospital Bedside-Card Prototype Using RFID and DVB-MHP Platform

A bedside card is generally used for showing an inpatient´s information in the ward. However a bedside card may reveal an inpatient´s private information. In this paper, we propose a prototype to replace the paper bedside card. The electronic bedside card is shown on a digital TV screen, once triggered by the medical staffs using a RFID tag/card. The idea comes from that not every ward has a computer to access patient´s information, but there is a TV set in every ward. The design of the proposed system mainly focuses on the integration between the DVB-MHP compatible television and the RFID technology. In this prototype, only the medical staffs and the patients holding RFID tags have the right to trigger the system; the information contained in a traditional bedside card of a patient will be shown on the MHP TV screen in the ward. Therefore, the prototype can be used to replace the paper bedside card in a ward, and it would help to introduce better services to inpatients.