Patientline

"Woody" wrote in message
...
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Last bit about DRI - the view from the roof is fantastic!

If you stand on the road outside the hospital at the junction of Thorne Rd
and Woodhouse Rd, and look along the latter, you can see Emley Moor on a
clear day, and it's over 20 miles away.

Bill

"Bill" wrote in message
...
In message , Bill Wright
writes
I had a call to a hospital a couple of years back that was complaining
that the 25W erp UHF paging system was faulty and interfering with the new
super dooper all singing and dancing TV system, not sure which it was, but
one of the two, Patientline or t'other.
Any way got there and looking at the TV picture on a ward and listening to
the pager TX every time it paged the TV signal went.
In the plant room where there was a beautifully engineered distribution
system there were now a couple of domestic aerial amps in series fed from
a cheap yagi fitted close to the paging aerial.

Blooming shame I didn't have a camera with me, Hospital and TV operator
were told what I thought of them and I left.

The installation standards I've seen have been pretty dire as well. Not to
mention the cavalier way they treat the hospital's existing RF system.

Bill

Doug Paulley wrote:
I had the misfortune of spending more time in hospital last week. As
such I was subjected to the Patientline "TV".

I decided to do a little investigation. It's a bizarre setup: for some
reason, with it's 4:3 screen, it still has pillarboxing; black strips
both left and right, on all channels. Why, I wonder?

http://www.kingqueen.org.uk/2.jpg

And even though it's an LCD panel, it's very definitely an analogue -
not digital - signal as can be seen by the interference, not just on
TV but throughout.

At least some channels are supplied by Sky, as can be seen by the "out
of hours" notices on e.g. BBC3

Here's the aerial arrangement supplying the hospital

http://www.kingqueen.org.uk/1.jpg

- looks like a phased array pointed at Emley Moor (it's Harrogate
hospital, and given the orientation of the satelite dish it looks like
the aerials are pointed approximately South).

I think there's an FM aerial in there, also the huge mast is
presumably for the Ambulance radio, and what's that small thing off
it?

The Patientline system itself is a series of Windows CE terminals
running proprietary software.

http://www.kingqueen.org.uk/3.jpg

The card dispensers run Windows 98. Everything feels very outdated and
given the state of Patientline, I doubt ever so that they will update
the hardware or software!

I paid for 3 days, (£7) but in the evening of the 2nd, there was a
power cut; after a few seconds the hospital emergency generators
kicked in, but sensibly they don't power Patientline, which remained
off for some time.

Eventually the National Grid power came back up and the whole system
reset itself; taking hours. However despite the terminals coming back
up, the channels remained offline for at least the following 24 hours
when I escaped the bloomin' place. Goodness knows why they couldn't
have sorted that out in that time. It's not acceptable, and I must get
round to attempting to get my money back - it's only £2.33 or whatever
but it's the principle of the thing.

Can anybody tell I've had a really boring time in hospital?! I read a
quote once that hospital is long periods of profound tedium punctuated
by short periods of intense anxiety - and that seems about right to
me!

doug


A bit OT, but does Patientline (or any other system) support wireless
internet access in hospitals these days? I know both partner and self
would feel as if we had undergone double arm amputation AND multiple
lobotomies if we couldn't use the internet.

--
Rod

Hypothyroidism is a seriously debilitating condition with an insidious
onset.
Although common it frequently goes undiagnosed.
www.thyromind.info www.thyroiduk.org www.altsupportthyroid.org

On Mon, 26 May 2008 13:16:38 +0100, Rod
wrote:

A bit OT, but does Patientline (or any other system) support wireless
internet access in hospitals these days?

not currently

I know both partner and self
would feel as if we had undergone double arm amputation AND multiple
lobotomies if we couldn't use the internet.

You can use the Patientline "web" "access" that comes "free" with the
TV (at £7 for 3 days).

It's heavily crippled, though. It's Mozilla 4.0 on Windows CE, with no
add-ins installed (e.g. Flash or Adobe Reader), crippled by security
(such that many forms don't work) and crawlingly slow, and with the
world's most awful keypad and "nipple" mouse.

Better than nothing, but only just.

Whenever I go in, I always have to make a call as to whether or not to
take my laptop. With my laptop plugged into their RF system I have
Freeview and analogue TV, also if I can find signal I have Internet
access, either using my inclusive data allowance or an Orange SIM with
their £1 a day "all you can eat" Internet. Slow but useable and
decidedly cheaper than Patientline, plus I can watch DVDs etc.

doug

--
http://www.kingqueen.org.uk
remove .lartsspammers to reply

Can anybody tell I've had a really boring time in hospital?! I read a
quote once that hospital is long periods of profound tedium punctuated
by short periods of intense anxiety - and that seems about right to
me!

doug

--
http://www.kingqueen.org.uk
remove .lartsspammers to reply



I think I can say I'd rather die than spend one night in an NHS hospital...
BUPA is a different matter of course.

On 26/05/2008 14:51, Light of Aria wrote:

I think I can say I'd rather die than spend one night in an NHS
hospital... BUPA is a different matter of course.

Hopefully someone will remember that if/when you can't afford BUPA.

In article ,
Light of Aria wrote:


Can anybody tell I've had a really boring time in hospital?! I read a
quote once that hospital is long periods of profound tedium punctuated
by short periods of intense anxiety - and that seems about right to
me!

doug

--
http://www.kingqueen.org.uk
remove .lartsspammers to reply



I think I can say I'd rather die than spend one night in an NHS
hospital... BUPA is a different matter of course.

If you're still unconscious following a general anaesthetic you probably
wouldn't know too much about your surroundings.

--
From KT24 - in "Leafy Surrey"

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

Light of Aria wrote:


Can anybody tell I've had a really boring time in hospital?! I read a
quote once that hospital is long periods of profound tedium punctuated
by short periods of intense anxiety - and that seems about right to
me!

doug

--
http://www.kingqueen.org.uk
remove .lartsspammers to reply



I think I can say I'd rather die than spend one night in an NHS
hospital... BUPA is a different matter of course.

Care to put that on a MedicAlert tag? Might save some resources when
you need to go to A&E.

D

In article , Light of Aria lightofaria
@no.valid.domain.com scribeth thus


Can anybody tell I've had a really boring time in hospital?! I read a
quote once that hospital is long periods of profound tedium punctuated
by short periods of intense anxiety - and that seems about right to
me!

doug

--
http://www.kingqueen.org.uk
remove .lartsspammers to reply



I think I can say I'd rather die than spend one night in an NHS hospital...
BUPA is a different matter of course.





Which if you needed an A&D dept you prolly would;!....
--
Tony Sayer

On Mon, 26 May 2008 14:51:37 +0100, "Light of Aria"
wrote:

I think I can say I'd rather die than spend one night in an NHS hospital...

Last November I had the misfortune to slip on the stairs. When I finally
arrived at the local A & E, an hour and twenty minutes away and four
hours later, I was left on a trolley in a public corridor for an hour in
considerable pain and with a bursting bladder (I hadn't urinated for
about eight hours) before I could get anyone to attend to me. I then had
the pleasure of holding a very full papier mache pee bottle on my tummy
for another hour before a consultant relieved me of it. All this time
Lesley wasn't allowed to come and see me because they were 'too busy'. I
was eventually diagnosed as having severe damage to the soft tissues in
the lower right quadrant of my back. Three weeks later, my GP also
diagnosed a broken rib.

The ambulance paramedics were superb.

--
Alan White
Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent.
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland.
Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.gt-britain.co.uk/weather