Now Selection Board members can download student internship data from the school's database to their Palm OS handhelds. They can then review the data for each student, select the appropriate tour of duty for a particular individual, and then upload the selection results back to the database.

National Naval Medical Center
To ensure that the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD complies with fire codes, the medical center's Fire Protection Prevention Department works with the Bethesda Fire Department to perform fire deficiency checks for the entire campus each month.

Inspectors need to record descriptions of any violations they discover. This was formerly accomplished using paper forms, a process that was further complicated by the fact that inspectors often maintained separate copies of the database. It became difficult to create a clear picture of the facility's fire safety compliance over time.

Seeking a solution that could connect all inspectors to a single master database and that could provide the Fire Protection Prevention Department with statistics on fire code violations throughout the medical center, they too turned to Impact Innovations Group. The new solution utilizes an advanced, Windows-based GUI (Graphical User Interface) environment to replace the legacy database and Palm IIIx handhelds to manage the entire inspection process.

Documentation of fire code violations is made easy thanks to searchable drop-down lists, and violation descriptions are immediately correlated to both national and local code sets stored on the handhelds, eliminating the need to search multiple manuals and handbooks for codes. Then, using a Palm HotSync cradle, the inspectors can upload the violations to the master database on a PC. Violation notices are then issued automatically, making the campus safer for both patients and staff.

Naval Medical Center Portsmouth
Physicians at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth used to keep track of patients by recording medical information, patient histories, and to-do lists on index cards. Now, however, they use Palm III handhelds to maintain patient files and access reference materials, pager numbers, and notes from the care team. Naval Medical Center Portsmouth developed an application that runs on Palm III handhelds and is synchronized with Windows NT servers.

The application gives physicians an easy-to-reference format for maintaining patient files. This saves time and reduces the chance of errors associated with handwritten notes. Eventually, Naval Medical Center Portsmouth would like to develop a wireless network that will query a central database every night and synchronize the next day's patient list.

USS Constellation and USS Abraham Lincoln
Besides guiding the aircraft, as shown in Figure B, LSOs (Landing Signal Officers) have another important role aboard aircraft carriers.

FIGURE B


An F/A-18E Super Hornet is directed to its spot for launch aboard the USS Constellation (CV-64). Roll over picture for a larger image.

After the plane has landed, the LSOs are responsible for recording how well a pilot approached and landed the plane, writing down a grade and additional comments in notebooks. This was made even more difficult by the fact that more than half of the landings took place at night, requiring LSOs to hold penlights in their mouths while writing the information. After flight-deck duty was finished, they had to manually type the details of every landing into a desktop computer.