Dealing with highly infectious patients in remote environments introduces a host of unusual problems. Anything that goes into the isolation ward can only come out if treated with chlorine or other sterilizing substance. That means that any paper notes have to stay inside and computer or tablets that go in and out have to withstand a chemical treatment. In Sierra Leone, for example, a team from Doctors Without Borders working with Ebola patients simply yells notes taken inside to someone transcribing on the other side of a fence. This is certainly silly and inefficient, so the team worked with folks at Google that sent them a special sealed tablet that wirelessly transmits data to a computer outside the isolation ward.

The package includes an EMR that’s based on the open source OpenMRS. This allows physicians to access patient data whether they are inside or outside the isolation tent, and since the system works on batteries it can go anywhere there’s a infectious disease outbreak.

source:google