Activity-Based Computing for Medical Work in Hospitals

JAKOB E. BARDRAM
IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Transactions on Computer Human Interaction


This article discusses the concept of activity-based computing and an implementation of that concept to hospital collaboration. The idea of activity-based computing is that the whole computing environment is focused on a single activity. Rather than opening several programs, one opens an activity, and that activity is linked to the programs necessary to make progress on that activity.

There are five core principles for activity based computing:

1. activity-centered resource aggregation
1. bundling resources together according to activity
2. activity suspension and resumption
1. saving the state of an activity
3. activity roaming
1. accessing the activity from multiple locations
4. activity sharing
1. synchronous and asynchronous multi-person access to an activity
5. activity awareness
1. location based computing, resources in the actvity are made available based on the location of the user

The developers created an implementation of activity based computing called the ABC Framework. The implementation in their research is used in healthcare. It allows physicians, nurses, and pharmacists access to a patients information including xrays, medications, history, etc. Overall, activity based computing appears to be a useful paradigm.

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