AP-HP hospitals order Symbol mobile devices for bedside food ordering
9 August 2006 Paris, France. Symbol Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: SBL) and
its partner Solutys have been chosen by AP-HP, Ile-de-France's university
and regional hospital centre, to supply a mobile solution to manage the
order entry of patients' meal trays. Symbol's Pocket PC PPT8800 and MC50
mobile devices will replace existing devices in almost 40 of AP-HP's
hospital locations with a view to improving patient service. All locations
will be rolled out with the new solution in 2006. AP-HP, which groups
together 38 healthcare establishments, invited tenders in 2004 to implement
robust and reliable technology for taking meal orders at patients' bedsides.
The solution had to adapt to the patient's specific requirements, tastes and
pathology, as well as automatically send the information to the kitchen to
enable them to plan, order and prepare the meals. In addition, data
traceability from the menus was essential. The solution proposed by Solutys,
based on Symbol's PPT8800 and MC50 mobile devices, met these needs and was
chosen in October 2005. It will integrate order entry applications from Agfa
Healthcare and Winrest. Within the framework of its call for tenders,
AP-HP wanted to ensure the longevity of the mobile devices in order to
provide its users with a long-term solution. Moreover, given the difficult
and intensive conditions under which the devices would be used, they had to
be rugged in order to withstand numerous drops. To be certain of having a
solid solution that would fulfill all the requirements of the hospital,
AP-HP also added specific requests to its call for tenders. These included
the provision of a disinfectable protective cover to meet the hygiene
conditions inherent in a hospital environment, a stylus attached by a lead
to the device to prevent it from being lost, and a strap so that the
terminal could be carried securely across the chest. The devices had to be
agreed upon by the business but also by the users. A working group made up
of dieticians, IT specialists and healthcare staff was set up to define the
ideal solution. After analysing the needs and technical constraints, the
devices had, most importantly, to be able to connect seamlessly to the
network, to integrate into AP-HP's existing system environment, to
incorporate a barcode reader and be compatible with the meal order entry
applications. Solutys and Symbol's solution best met AP-HP's needs in terms
of reliability, performance and cost. Each AP-HP location is able to
choose between Symbol's PPT8800 or MC50 mobile devices to meet their own
specific requirements. The devices chosen will be integrated with Agfa
Healthcare and Winrest order entry software. Both devices are sturdy,
ergonomic and small in size, and are able to operate in batch mode and Wi-Fi
allowing them to adapt to the infrastructure already in place. They both
include a barcode reader for scanning the patient's details in order to
identify them in real-time. "Symbol's MC50 and PPT8800 mobile devices
represent a reliable, rugged and comprehensive solution for users working in
challenging environments," states Nicolas Segons, country manager for Symbol
Technologies France. "This deployment within AP-HP is a perfect example of
how healthcare establishments can benefit from mobile technologies, enhance
traceability and improve their performance." In the future, Symbol mobile
devices will be used for other applications, such as pharmacy management,
acceptance merchandise, medicine prescriptions, inventory management and
monitoring laboratory analyses. To top
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