Tangible Information: Gestures for a Portable e-Nursing touch screen interface

Elderly persons make use of significantly more emergency medical services than do younger adults. The elderly are more prone to medical emergencies such as cardiac arrests, falls or diabetic seizures. Our prototype called portable medical monitoring computer (PMMC) was developed to provide a possible solution to efficient elderly care, especially in such emergency situations. It is an addition to our remotecare system which uses a wireless sensor network (WSN) to monitor the elderly in aged care facilities. PMMC is classified as a touchable medical e-nursing information system to support registered nurses in nursing homes with vital sign parameters and other medical information about residents who are suffering a medical emergency. The `user centred design´ application was predicated on the concept of a portable computer with a touch screen, which allows users to access information next to the casualty at the point-of-treatment. The paper reports on the results of usability issues found during testing, specifically with our gesture enabled interface. We suggest improvements to make the interface more intuitive and suitable for humans´ interaction.