After another conversation with Johannes Ernst I am thinking more about how we can make BirdDog more web-twoey. The concept of attention came up, prodded by a forum Jernst participated in earlier this year. He was saying that the bedside experience might be supplemented with emitting devices that could interact with a handheld device, say to deliver vital signs (VSs). I stated no, the big deal is getting information about the patient from systems that are remote (e.g., ECGs, images, clinical profile from the data repository). As I was elaborating in the last entry to this blog, there is value in understanding and declaring explicitly the log of all salient decision points that pertain to a particular encounter. The 'attention' path of the clinician is the basis for clinical decisions, but only a small proportion of the evidence is usually documented. To the extent that this can be automated, the power of the note will be enhanced, making for a more robust document.

The other Web 2.0 concept that we definitely want to exploit is RSS technology. The idea here is entirely compatible with the role of BirdDog as a passive information space. I subscribe to my patients' data feeds -- they render directly on my device without any need for repetitive requests on my part. (Though I might want to set some parameters for efficiency's sake.)

Finally there is the identity management part of the application. Besides achieving SSO, I might want to register various levels of presence to the application, depending on my role, devices and availability. Netmesh is working on this.