HospiX: The Hospital Exploring Application for Smart Devices

International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 5, Issue 11, November 2015 489
ISSN 2250-3153
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HospiX: The Hospital Exploring Application for Smart
Devices
V.S.P Vidanapathirana, K.H.M.R Peiris and Dhishan Dhammearatchi
Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, Sri Lanka
Abstract- Hospitals are indispensable part of our lives when it
comes to providing best medical facilities to people suffering
from various diseases, disorders or syndromes. Usually, it is a
place that in a vast area with lots of buildings and places such as
laboratories, wards, pharmacies, etc. In such situation, patients,
visitor and even the working staff might find it difficult to find
the necessary place they need to be at a particular time. The
newest members who join the hospital staff might take a while to
be familiarized with the hospital area including all the places in
it. When it comes to the Outdoor Patient Department (OPD)
patients, they also might have to go several rooms to meet their
doctors, or to get X-rays, lab reports, and buy medicine. Having
direction boards helps, but it is not always productive.
Sometimes people might find it difficult to read when they are
not properly maintained by time. To the people who visit their
family, friends and relatives who are hospitalized, it is really hard
if they do not know where to find the ward they have been
admitted on. On the other hand, they might get to know that there
are special goods (E.g.: food items, clothing and medical items)
to brought from the outside, so before even visiting the patient
they have to go back and bring them. These kinds of situations
are very common in both government and private hospitals in Sri
Lanka. So it is necessary for the hospitals to provide those parties
with a mobile navigation system which helps them to find their
way inside the hospital area. It is a mobile navigation system,
and it includes a patient health monitoring procedure as well. At
the prior study, a number of available technologies were studied
and evaluated to choose the most effective and cost effective use
for developing the system as well as its use and maintenance.
The system use Bluetooth BLE for its implementation process
with the aid of iBeacons. Therefore, the HospiX mobile
application has been able to answer all the issues mentioned
above by helping both hospital staff, visitors and OPD patients
who comes to the hospital.
Index Terms- Hospital, Navigation, Patient Health Monitoring,
OPD, Android Application, iBeacons, Bluetooth
I. INTRODUCTION
n most developing countries, provision of basic preventive,
primitive and curative services is a major concern of the
Government. With growing population and advancement in the
medical technology and increasing expectation of the people
especially for quality curative care, it has now become
imperative to provide quality health care services through the
established institutions [1]. In that case, the use of mobile
technology can be used to improve their quality of service from
various manners. Not only for the supplement of the high quality
medical treatments, can it be used to make a useful application
which all the doctors, hospital staff members and patient’s
guardians can benefit. “HospiX: The Hospital Exploring
Application for Smart Devices” is one of those upcoming mobile
applications that has the ability of providing such constructive
services.
As mentioned previously, hospital is a place with many
places, such as pharmacies, wards, clinics, laboratories and etc. It
is also a really busy place because, it handles matters of life and
death all the time. So the responsibility of the doctors and the
hospital staff members is really high, so being at a place at the
correct time is really important. In a vast area like that,
sometimes it could be hard to find particular locations of a
hospital even for a usual person who works at the hospital. For a
person who visit the hospital for the first time, it is much harder.
The HospiX application will be a mobile application that runs in
android platform that provides location finding and getting
direction services at the hospital premises, using the newest
technology, Bluetooth LE (iBeacons).
Unlike Global Positioning System (GPS) iBeacons has the
capability of tracking the micro locations even in a limited
geographical area in a very accurate manner. Since it works in
long distance, it makes it more beneficial. With the aid of this
device, HospiX will be able to locate the places in the hospital
using a smart device.
HospiX will come as a combination of a mobile application
and an android application which are merged together, where the
mobile application is capable of accessing the online database of
the desktop application using an application program interface
(API). Since the desktop application records all the details of the
patients including the test results, and treatment details, the
authenticated users can view them according to their
authorization level. As an example, the doctors can view the
assigned patient’s blood test results and come to a conclusion
about the sickness he or she is suffering, or the current condition
of him/her without even visiting the patient. This saves the time
of the doctor, which can be allocated to a patient in a much
critical condition.
The recommendations that is being made by the doctors for a
particular patient can be received as push notifications by the
guardian of that patient. This is important for them because they
will get an idea about how the contribution should happen from
their aspect.
This project consists of designing and implementing an
Android application for exploring the hospital. The authors have
several objectives as follows.
I

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A. General objectives
• Develop a hospital exploring application that can be
used by any person with a very simple knowledge of
using a mobile application.
• Develop highly user friendly application.
• Release the application without any errors.
• Provide the application to the market for free of charge.
B. Specific objectives
• To implement an accurate navigation system than GPS.
• To develop a successful real time notification system.
• To store patient details in a proper manner.
• To process data efficiently.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 has
provided the existing related work. Section 3 describes the
methodology of this paper. The results and discussion is
mentioned in Section 4, and the conclusion of the HospiX project
has described in Section 5.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Giles L. and Barton D. et al (2011), has discussed about an
electronic patient tracking system for use in a hospital,
particularly a hospital emergency room facility [2]. A plurality of
patient tracking modules are provided, each of which includes a
multi-character display for indicating patient name and patient
complaint as well as an indicator of attending physician and
nurse. Illuminated color coded switches are used to indicate the
placement of orders for work to be done. The system provides
automatic timeouts if the order is not completed as evidenced by
subsequent operation of the switch, within a predetermined
period of time and changes the lamp status to an alarm condition,
such as flashing with a particular cadence.
Harmon, A. et al (2011) has discussed about a patient
tracking system that receives the first location of the patient
within the medical facility identified by the user via the input
peripheral using a computer [3]. The first location is displayed on
a display device operatively connected to the computer, the first
location being identified by a graphical marker representing the
first location where the patient can be found. In response to a
user interaction with the input peripheral, a second location of
the patient is received, indicating movement of the patient from
the first location to the second, different location.
H. Gamboa, et al (2010) has described about a wireless
wearable sensing system designed to monitor patients within a
building in real-time on a continuous basis [4]. The device
automatically provides alarms to caregivers, based on bio signals
measured by sensors integrated on a necklace worn by each
patient. The device detects heart rate, involuntary falls, and
location of the patient within a building.
UW Health Navigator is one of the application which uses
Wi-Fi to determine the user's location, and then provides
directions to any selected public destination in a hospital [5].
Users also can choose to find the closest of a certain type of
facility, including clinics, hospital units, eating areas, shopping
options, stairs/elevators and restrooms.
MyWay application is a personal guide to Boston Children's
Hospital [6]. This features step-by-step navigation to help users
find all of Children's locations, including emergency room
facilities and find their way around the buildings once they
arrive. MyWay application also connects with Children's internal
support services, and features convenient listings, directions and
information about nearby restaurants, hotels and attractions.
Users have access to MyChildren’s Patient portals to review and
manage your child’s appointments and securely message you’re
your child’s clinician and view lab and health records.
PeaceHealth MediLocator application features navigation
within any of the PeaceHealth Medical Centers, as well as to the
locations of PeaceHealth Medical professionals, labs and offices
[7]. Also this application allows users to look up Doctors and
search by specialty.
Patient Records Doctor at Work application developed to
manage the patient records, appointments, and visit notes the
easy way. Bill patient, track customer payments and balance due
can also be done using this mobile application [8]. This
application is useful for medical professionals and students that
visit patient every now and then.
Wifarer Indoor Navigator provides navigation inside any
hospital. Provides useful medical information and staff directory
[9].
Durdans Hospital application is one of the local applications
developed for Durdans Hospital [10]. Application features
Doctors availability, health check-ups, online payments and
online appointments.
III. METHODOLOGY
At the initial step the team conducted a literature review on
the existing applications to get an idea about the features of them,
the usage, and the accuracy as well. At the same time, an online
survey was also performed among a selected group of users and
those results were evaluated accordingly. In order to identify the
real situation in a hospital premises, the team visited a hospital
and interviewed several members in its management board.
Based on those gathered information, the team intended the
design and the implementation of the HospiX application.
When considering the explained solution of HospiX, it can
be described as a combination of two main components. They are
the desktop application, and the mobile application.
The desktop application is developed in NetBeans IDE 8.0,
using Java language, while the mobile application is developed in
Android Studio.
A. Desktop application
Initially, the team arranged several meetings with one of the
leading private hospitals of Sri Lanka to gather the data which
are important for the implementation of the desktop application.
It was mainly focused on the basic idea of the patient records
handling process in the hospital. After the data gathering
completed, they were analysed and the decisions were made
about the structure of the interfaces and the languages and the
software to be used.
The desktop application will be updated with the details of
the treatments provided, the response of a patient towards a
particular treatment or a test. Those records will be saved in the

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local database, which will be hosted online once the system
completed and merged with the mobile application. Afterwards,
the mobile application will be able to access the patient records
in the desktop application using the API developed.
B. Mobile Application
The mobile application will be implemented to run in
android platform, in an android operating system which is higher
than Android 4.3.
The major capability of the android application is finding
locations or providing navigation directions to the users while
they are at hospital premises. This will be done by the iBeacons,
which uses Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity. iBeacons broadcast their
identifier to nearby portable electronic devices. This technology
enables smartphones, tablets and other devices to perform actions
when in close proximity to an iBeacon [12].
In order to work in that manner, the iBeacons need to
identify the co-ordinates of a particular user location, because
then only it can direct the user in to the preferred destination. To
fulfil that purpose the team came up with an algorithm based on
several mathematical concepts.
Figure 1 – User locations around one iBeacon
If there is an iBeacon in the centre of a circle with an r1
radius, there can be millions of co-ordinates (user locations)
around it. In other words, it’s infinite. Using two iBeacons that
overlaps as follows can narrow down those user locations in to
two. The user can be in one of those two locations.
Figure 2 – User locations around two iBeacons
As a deal breaker, a third iBeacon can be used. It will limit
the number of user locations to one.
Figure 3 –User locations around three iBeacons
When the proximity of the third beacon crosses on of the
users locations given in Figure 2, there it gives the exact location
of the particular user. This defines that in order to identify a user
location, it requires three iBeacons.
In order to calculate the value of X and Y, a relationship
between them and proximity values or in other words r1, r2, r3
and r4, should be developed. In here, it has produced a Right
triangle, and therefore the Pythagorean Theorem was used to
determine the values for X and Y.
Figure 4 – Applying Pythagorean Theorem
The equation given as (1) was retrieved by applying the
Pythagorean Theorem to the Right triangle given in Figure 4.
Applying the same theory to the other r1 and r2 proximities,
another three equations can be received as follows.
By solving the equations given by (2), (3), and (4) it can be
further narrowed down to following two equations.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)

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Assigning a1, b1, a2, and b2 for equation 5 and 6 as given
below, they can be further simplified.
This leads to the co-ordinates of the location, indicated by
the values for the X and Y which can be received by solving the
following equations.
Based on these mathematical concepts, the team developed
an algorithm and it was implemented using Android.
As noted previously, since the mobile application gets the
ability to access the online database through API once it is
hosted, the mobile application will be able to produce several
information regarding patients. The mobile application will
provide the users the capability of adding their patients to the
local database of the mobile application, and once they are added
it can map the details with the desktop application regarding
those patients. The doctors can see the test results of the assigned
patient, and come to a conclusion about the current health
condition about the patient. The guardian of the patient can get
push notifications about the patient’s condition, and also if there
are good to be bought from outside at the next visit.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. RESULTS
Throughout this research the core finding that has been
found was the possibility of using iBeacons to discover micro
locations even in a limited area, using the algorithm developed
by the team based on the mathematical concepts that have been
discussed in Section 5, under methodology. The flow chart of the
implemented algorithm is as follows.
Figure 5 – Flow Chart of the algorithm
Besides the algorithm, the API that was developed to make
the connection between the mobile application and the desktop
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application is another finding that the team came across within
the HospiX project. It has the most basic key words that can be
usually found in Structured Query Language (SQL), so
establishing the connectivity is quite easier with that API, since it
does not require to include all the components of a particular
SQL query.
B. DISCUSSION
This Bluetooth transmitting device technology has opened
up a new page in the book of indoor navigation and opening up
micro locations in it. There are several types of beacons, so the
team conducted a separate observation regarding these beacons
before making a selection.
As the team discovered, there are three types of iBeacons
which act as Bluetooth transmitters. Those are,
• Apple iBeacons
• Eddystone
• Vendor Specific
The Apple iBeacons were introduced by Apple Inc., and they
work comfortably with Apple devices. In the point of view of the
team, it can be given as a development constraint, because only a
user with an Apple device will get the use of this application, if
the development was done using the Apple iBeacons.
Eddystone is an open source and cross-platform Bluetooth
BLE beacon standard which was introduced by Google very
recently to the field of Information Technology (IT). This is
basically the open beacon format from Google. Since this is
really new to the filed, there are no enough references, or
resources that the team can use. So this left the team with the
choice of Vendor specific beacons.
Vendor specific beacons, or in the case of HospiX, Estimote
iBeacons support both android and iOS platforms, which means
that any smart device can be used to take advantage of them. So
the team identified it as the best choice of devices that can be
used to develop the HospiX application.
During the testing phase, the team noticed that there is an
attenuation, which reduces the strength of the signals that comes
to the mobile phone, from the iBeacons due to the obstacles in
the surface. As an example, if the user is in a hospital corridor
which is filled with people, and if the iBeacons are placed on the
corridor walls in an average height, it weakens the power of the
Bluetooth signals that comes from them. Mostly this happens
over long distances. Therefore, to overcome this issue, the team
tested it by placing the iBeacons at a higher position on the wall,
and it exhibited positive results by providing an accurate
navigation service.
V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
Walking in the hallways and buildings of a complex hospital
can add an extra layer of anxiety to an already stressful
experience for patients, their families and friends. So a
navigation application like HospiX can give them some sort of
relieve from that stress. Not only that, it improves the overall
experience of those parties as well. Additionally, the HospiX
application will be very much useful for the employees who join
the hospital as new recruits. They will be able to locate the places
in the hospital in an accurate manner and get directions to
particular locations as well.
The doctors can easily view their patient’s details via
HospiX application, without even visiting the patient. This saves
the time of the busy schedule of a doctor, so he/she can focus
more on the patients who are in a critical condition.
Same applies for the guardians of the admitted patients.
They can view the current condition of the patient before even
visiting the hospital. It saves some breath for them, and saves
time as well.
HospiX application currently has a limitation since it can be
only used by the users with android devices. Therefore this
mobile application can be modified to iOS platform as a next
step beyond this research.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
It is with great pleasure that we express deep sense of
gratitude and profound feeling of admiration to our project
supervisor Mr.Dhishan Dhammearatchi for guiding and advising
through the entire project work. And also we would like to thank
for all the guidance given by Mrs Gayana Fernando as the
lecturer in-charge of Comprehensive Design and Analysis
Project.
We would like to thank to the members in Sri Lanka Institute
of Information Technology for providing adequate resources.
Finally, we would like to thank all the known and
anonymous people who took part in our online survey, as well as
the Durdans Hospital for giving us information which were really
important for the development of our project.
REFERENCES
[1] Academia.edu, “Online Hospital Management System Introduction”,
2015.[Online].Available:
https://www.academia.edu/8496541/Online_Hospital_Management_System
_Introduction. [Accessed: July 04, 2015].
[2] Barton and D. Pope, Patient tracking system for hospital emergency
facility, 1st ed. 1988.
[3] Harmon, A. B. Whitehouse, W. Wells, K. Lynn and S. Smith, Patient
tracking system, 1st ed. New York, 2011.
[4] H. Gamboa, F. Silva and H. Silva, “Patient Tracking System”, Proceedings
of the 4th International ICST Conference on Pervasive Computing
Technologies for Healthcare, 2010.
[5] UWHealth.org, “UW Health Navigator, UW Hospital Patient Guide”, 2015.
[Online]. Available: http://www.uwhealth.org/patient-guides/uw-
hospital/uw-health-navigator/42521. [Accessed: Feb 10, 2015].
[6] Childrenshospital.org, “Boston Children’s Hospital launches new MyWay
mobile app |Â Boston Children's Hospital”, 2015. [Online]. Available:
http://www.childrenshospital.org/news-and-events/2012/april-2012/boston-
childrens-hospital-launches-new-myway-mobile-app. [Accessed: Jan 18,
2015].
[7] Etelu.com, “PeachHealth MediLocator”, 2015. [Online]. Available:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=ETELU&hl=af.
[Accessed: Feb 10, 2015].
[8] Play.google.com, “Doctor @ Work - Patient Record”, 2015. [Online].
Available:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobilebizco.atworkserie
s.doctor&hl=en. [Accessed: Feb 28, 2015].
[9] Wifarer.com, “Wifarer Indoor Navigator”, 2015. [Online]. Available:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Wifarer+Inc.&=en.

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[10] omaktechnology.com, “Durdans Hospital”, 2015. [Online]. Available:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=OMAK+Technologie.
[11] Wikipedia,“IBeacon”,2015.[Online].Available:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBeacon. [Accessed: July 04, 2015].
AUTHORS
First Author – V.S.P Vidanapathirana, Sri Lanka Institute of
Information Technology, Sri Lanka. Email:
vishvi.spv@gmail.com
Second Author – K.H.M.R Peiris, Sri Lanka Institute of
Information Technology, Sri Lanka. Email:
mevi.rosh@gmail.com
Third Author – Dhishan Dhammearatchi, Sri Lanka Institute of
Information Technology, Sri Lanka. Email: dhishan.d@sliit.lk

HospiX: The Hospital Exploring Application for Smart Devices

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