Title: Pervasive assistance system for mobile physicians on the road

Authors: M. Khayati, J. Akaichi

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, ISG-University of Tunis, 41, Rue de la Liberte, Cite Bouchoucha, 2000 Le Bardo, Tunis, Tunisia. ' Department of Computer Science, ISG-University of Tunis, 41, Rue de la Liberte, Cite Bouchoucha, 2000 Le Bardo, Tunis, Tunisia

Abstract: Physicians have to react swiftly to save their patients| lives, especially if called to treat them far from medical structures, such as hospitals, clinics, emergency departments, etc. This is ensured by, among other things, determining as quickly as possible the healthcare institutions that have the necessary resources for medical intervention in critical situations. The goal of this paper is to propose a pervasive assistance system for mobile physicians that can localise, browse and reserve medical resources while in motion. The localisation subsystem is ensured by a new route-calculator algorithm based on Delaunay Triangulation (DT). We show that our approach, applied on road networks, is able to establish the Continuous k-Nearest Neighbours (CkNNs) while taking into account the dynamic changes of locations from which queries are issued. This approach can be exploited by physicians for medical resource localisation, browsing and reservation, considerably improving the services provided for patients in critical situations.

Keywords: continuous k-nearest neighbours; healthcare technology; location dependant services; mobile physicians; network roads; pervasive systems; route guidance; medical resource localisation; patient care; critical situations; emergency situations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHTM.2009.023729

International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, 2009 Vol.10 No.1/2, pp.82 - 100

Published online: 08 Mar 2009 *

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