NURPHY is the prototype of a web-based application for real-time video communication between nurses in nursing homes and emergency care units (ECU) to avoid unnecessary transports of residents to hospitals in case of a fall. NURses can start the videocommunication and PHYsicians are able to lead the nurse through examination and see the resident in real time so that a telemedical diagnosis is possible. Using NURPHY the necessity of taking an X-ray can be determined and only residents who need further examination have to be taken to the ECU and cost savings from €1.500 000 on average are feasible.
NURPHY also can:
- provide timely and reliable telemedical diagnostics and telemonitoring in a case of residents fall
- reduce stress in frail residents
- increase productivity in both nursing homes and emergency care units
- Improve the efficiency of care in hospital ambulances through reduction in visits.
The NurPhy prototypical application used a central (fhstp) server for data exchange that was implemented with Node.js. For real-time communication, the Web-Socket protocol was used, while the video-communication, screen sharing and documents transfer were enabled with the OpenTok/Tokbox framework (tokbox, n.d.).
http://lifestream.fhstp.ac.at:8080
