IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015 - 51

Figure 9. The patient card is created during patient registration where the number is assigned. Once assigned, this number can be
used for a consultation, even if the rest of the details have not been collected. This allows visits to be conducted quickly in those clinics
where there is no time for a full registration process before the doctor sees the patient.

In the solution design, the mobile RFID-read devices
utilized by community healthcare workers are generalpurpose data-enabled mobile handheld devices that
can communicate with the remote centralized database
of the medical facility. A number of RFID readers are
tested as part of the system deployment, but no RFID
write facility is used at this stage and RFID tags act only
as identifiers and pointers to the patient records. The
Micro-RFID device is powered by a USB interface with
an LED indicator. It has a built-in transceiver antenna
reading ISO cards at a distance of 2-3 cm, with output
of a 10 digit decimal unique code. The device is plugand-play on PC and Mac, and operates without drivers
on iPad and Galaxy tablets (with the appropriate dongle
interface) as depicted in Fig. 11. Other Android devices,
e.g., the Toshiba AT1100, have a USB port directly
accepting the RFID reader.

Mobile Systems
The primary objective of the mobile system is to
provide outreach services, bringing healthcare to
the masses in the field. The system design approach
includes interfaces containing the native language
of target devices as well as third-party apps. These
various mobile interfaces access data via the backoffice application, NAV, as well as via SQL server. This
design allows flexibility of mobile devices, currently
including Windows Mobile 6, Android, and iOS, and
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the more recent Windows 8/RT. The major advantage
of the design, however, is flexibility of the business
model. The mobile system can accommodate existing
back-office installations, as well as cost models and
end-user requirements. In mass-market implementation, this approach will offer a feasible and sustainable solution.

Motorola MC75A
Motorola MC75A was the first approach to integrating
with the clinic system, and used open source web services for synchronization between the .Net app on the
handheld and NAV [8]. The app attempted to copy the
functionality of the NAV system, although not for all
data and critically not for all business logic. The ruggedness of the device is a plus over general-purpose
handled devices. However, the smaller screen size on
the MC75A means that the data collection form must be
divided into many tabbed smaller forms, posing a disadvantage for ease of use in the field.

Cellica
Cellica allows the viewing and update of SQL databases on various mobile devices running all operating systems [9]. The desktop part of the system is
installed on the server holding the database, and the
desktop syncs wirelessly with a number of licensed
mobile devices. The desktop software allows a link

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015