Wireless research helps doctors

By Hemesh Patel
Daily Bruin Staff

In the future, using the Internet to play a video game on a
computer and then continuing it on a personal digital assistant
without stopping may become the norm.

Researchers are currently developing this type of technology at
UCLA and expanding its applications from gaming to the medical
field.

Funded by the National Science Foundation with a grant of $1.5
million over three years, a group of computer scientists and
physicians are developing a technology known as “nomadic
healer.”

“Physicians will be able to continuously access patient
records and images such as X-rays between desktop computers and PDA
devices,” said Rajive Bagrodia, the principal investigator of
the project.

Bagrodia and his colleagues are currently working on developing
“middleware software,” which will allow linking
computers and PDA devices together through wireless Internet.

The software will allow users of this nomadic system to have a
continuous connection to the Internet regardless of where they are
at any given time.

“The middleware software will help provide a seamless and
secure connection,” said Dr. Daniel Valentino, co-principal
investigator of the project.

The system will be “image-based” in that the
technology will be able to allow images such as X-rays to travel
and be digitized between computers, laptops and palm pilots.

Just as the images on a video game would not be as graphically
clear on a palm pilot, the PDA devices that physicians would use
will have the same type of limitations.

But some fear that having personal and confidential records of
patients traveling seamlessly through the wireless Internet may
serve as a security problem, because hackers may find ways to break
into the system.

“I don’t know how reliable a wireless Internet
system would be,” said Yaw Woo, a physician specialist at the
Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. “All of the information is
broadcasted in the air.”

Woo said there are devices available to intercept cellular phone
conversations, and he feared the same type of devices could be
developed to tap into the nomadic healer system.

But researchers are confident that information will be kept
secure through the use of passwords and encryption data.

“I am reasonably confident that we will develop security
tools that will (protect) the degree of confidentiality of
patients,” said Richard Guy,

the project’s team leader.

Advancements in technology will ensure the right users have
access to information by being able to identify fingerprints and
recognize faces.

“All this technology already exists,” Valentino
said.

In the coming years, researchers expect mobile and wireless
access to the Internet to be common.

Bagrodia came up with the idea for this system when he was
discussing plans for the new medical center with Mike McCoy, senior
associate director of the UCLA medical center.

McCoy told Bagrodia the new hospital would be equipped with a
lot of wireless technology.

With that information in mind, Bagrodia thought of applying
“nomadic” computers to the medical field.

“Suppose a doctor is not at his desk and he gets a call
about his patient,” Bagrodia said. “The doctor will
have to construct the patient’s history by memory.”

He said the nomadic healer technology will allow the physician
to get the patient’s history on his PDA device.

In addition, the physician would be able to continuously
communicate with other physicians concerning a particular case.

“An internist looks at a certain image one way, while a
cardiologist sees it in a different light,” Bagrodia
said.

Researchers said they are way ahead of schedule and have already
developed a demo version of the system. They expect to have a
prototype ready by the fall of this year.