3 October 2007
Watch movies, surf Net -- from your hospital bed - SGH trial has bedside terminals that work like a plane's in-flight entertainment system
The Straits Times - pg H5

AT YOUR FINGERTIPS: Patient Victor Lee tries the new multi-function terminal, which doctors can also use to show patients their X-rays and other test results. -- ST PHOTO: LIM SIN THAI

By Lee Hui Chieh

NOW you can watch movies, listen to music, play games and surf the Internet - from your hospital bed.

In a six-month trial ending this month, Singapore General Hospital (SGH) has introduced a patient bedside terminal in one of its wards that works like a plane's in-flight entertainment system.

It will be more widely available next year, when SGH will probably install them in all its 140 Class A rooms with single beds. Changi General Hospital (CGH) and KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) will also test the terminals with some customised functions, from next month.

Via the terminal's 17-inch touch-screen, patients can tune in to local and cable TV channels, as well as the radio. And instead of pressing a call button, they can pick up the built-in phone receiver and 'video-call' nurses on duty, who will appear on the screen during the conversation.

Doctors can also show patients their X-rays, scans and other test results on the terminal, rather than pushing a computer on wheels to the patient's bedside, which is another hospital trial.

Doctors and nurses are each given a security token, similar to those issued by banks for Internet banking, to ensure patients' records are kept confidential. Patients cannot access their own files.

Patients will have to pay an extra daily fee to use all available services on the terminal, though they will get to watch television on it for free, said Mr Alvin Ong, assistant director of innovation and strategic IT planning at SingHealth, which runs SGH, CGH and KKH.

The amount to be charged has not yet been decided.

A team of seven representatives from SingHealth, SGH and home-grown IT company ISPL took a year to develop the terminal.

The project, which costs less than $100,000, is one of 12 health-care IT projects to get a grant from the Infocomm Development Authority. SingHealth and ISPL came up with the rest of the funds.

The terminal and the computer-on-wheels project are part of SingHealth's larger plan to create a 'digital ward' where technology is used to take over simple daily tasks from health-care workers.

Since May this year, 160 patients have tried the terminals.

In a survey of over 40 of them, more than nine in 10 said they preferred the terminal to a regular TV set. Half said they were willing to pay $15 a day for it.

Mr Victor Lee, 40, a sales manager of a printing company, was one of those who used a terminal while in hospital.

When checking his e-mail on Monday after an operation for a slipped disc, he discovered a message from a customer who wanted to change a delivery location the next day. He said: 'If I can check my e-mail, I won't be so worried. This is convenient because it's everything-in-one.'