Intel Corp., the world’s largest maker of x86 microprocessors and supporting components, has unveiled a prototype of the so-called “clinical assistant platform”, which should allow nurses and physicians to have information about a patient’s health condition at hand anywhere.

“To improve the quality of healthcare and staff workflow, the most critical task is to deliver the right information to the point of decision – which is most often at the patient’s bedside. This platform was designed in collaboration with the very people who must have access to up-to-the-minute patient care records and be able to document a patient’s condition in real time,” said Louis Burns vice president and general manager of Intel’s digital health group.

During Intel Developer Forum the company demonstrated a mobile point-of-care platform designed specifically to address the unmet needs of nurses and physicians working on the front line of patient care.

Products based on the mobile clinical assistant platform could offer a variety of features and technologies including: an exterior casing that can be wiped clean with disinfectant; radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for rapid user and patient identification; and barcode scanning to help reduce medication-dispensing errors. The platform could also include a digital camera to enhance patient charting and progress notes; Bluetooth technology to record patient vital signs; wireless connectivity to access electronic medical records systems.

In addition to having a lightweight design, ergonomic features such as an integrated handle, and a spill- and drop-tolerant enclosure, the mobile platform could provide shift-long use made possible by to swapping batteries while in a docking station.

The mobile clinical assistant platform is the outcome of hospital workflow studies, nurse and physician interviews, and ethnographic research among nurses at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, California. It focuses on the healthcare community’s needs to enhance patient safety, reduce medication-dispensing errors and ease staff workloads.

Motion Computing, a leading slate tablet PC provider worldwide, will be the primary original equipment manufacturer to introduce first-generation products based on the Intel mobile clinical assistant platform in the first half of 2007. Motion is focused on designing tablet PCs for specific vertical industries including healthcare, field sales and service and government; healthcare makes up almost half of its business and is the company’s primary focus.