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The emergency room (ER) digital bedside card is a simple and important invention. It can be directly connected to the hospital information system to display important patient information in real time, reduce the workload of ER staff, improve their satisfaction, and provide useful information for patients and their families. We conducted a prospective study of ER staff using questionnaires and conducted Wilcoxon signed-rank test to compare before and after ER digital bedside card implementation in the Tamsui MacKay Memorial Hospital. Sixty participants of the ER staff joined the study before and after digital card implementation. After the ER digital bedside card was set up, the number of round trips from the nursing station to the ER bedside and the number of common questions asked by patients and their family members were significantly reduced. The cards reduced the response time for frequently asked questions by patients and their family members and significantly improved the satisfaction of ER staff. Our study showed that ER digital bedside cards reduced the workload of ER staff, provided patients and their families with useful information, and greatly improved ER staff satisfaction. This marks an important milestone in the future development of smart ER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effects of two different display modes—head-up display (HUD) vs. head-down display (HDD) on the driving performance and psychological workload ratings of drivers operating commercial vehicles in Taiwan. Twelve commercial lorry drivers participated in a 2 (high/low driving load road)×2 (head-up/head-down display)×2 (different arrangements of display sequences used) mixed-factor driving simulation experiment. Participants were divided into two groups according to the level of driving load conditions within each driving load group; the participants were further divided into another 2 subgroups based on two arrangements of display sequences used. For each driving load condition, there were two 20-min driving simulation experiments, separated by a display sequence using head-up first and then head-down or vice versa. The subjects were asked to perform four tasks: “commercial goods delivery”, “navigation”, “speed detection and maintenance” and “response to an urgent event”. Results indicated that for the first task, commercial goods delivery, the two display types showed no significant performance difference in terms of average accuracy rate. However, in terms of response time to an urgent event, it was faster with the HUD (with a low driving load—head-up vs. head-down: 1.0073 vs. 1.8684 s; with a high driving load—head-up vs. head-down: 1.3235 vs. 2.3274 s) and speed control was more consistent (having low speed variations) than with the HDD. In addition, using the HUD caused less mental stress for the drivers than the HDD and was easier for first-time users to become familiar with; with a high driving load, however, the difference between the two displays was not significant. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Taiwan is a highly informational country, and a robust traffic network is not only critical to the national economy, but is also an important infrastructure for economic development. This paper aims to integrate government open data and global positioning system (GPS) technology to build an instant image-based traffic assistant agent with user-friendly interfaces, thus providing more convenient real-time traffic information for users and relevant government units. The proposed system is expected to overcome the difficulty of accurately distinguishing traffic information and to solve the problem of some road sections not providing instant information. Taking the New Taipei City Government traffic open data as an example, the proposed system can display information pages at an optimal size on smartphones and other computer devices, and integrate database analysis to instantly view traffic information. Users can enter the system without downloading the application and can access the cross-platform services using device browsers. The proposed system also provides a user reporting mechanism, which informs vehicle drivers on congested road sections about road conditions. Comparison and analysis of the system with similar applications shows that although they have similar functions, the proposed system offers more practicability, better information accessibility, excellent user experience, and approximately the optimal balance (a kind of symmetry) of the important items of the interface design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]