OCW Case study: VITAE

The OCW portal has been used as the framework for developing the new CSC VITAE system which handles citizen records in elder care and nursing homes. The solution contains a number of modules covering different parts of a care client record, such as registering basic client data, assessment of the client, ordering of services, and administration of medicine.

The use of OCW as the portal has resulted in a highly modular and configurable system in which the users only see the parts that they are authorized to. The system is highly intuitive, because the concept of a context makes it clear which client the currently displayed data is related to, and because the modular design makes it logical where to find a particular piece of information.

The system exploits the possibilities for interaction between modules, thus making the modules work together as one system without compromising the idea that modules are independent. The effect of this is that users feel they are using an intuitive and coherent system that is easy to get familiar with instead of a portal with a set of totally isolated applications.

Part of the system is a Windows Mobile application for PDA devices. This application is hosted in the OCW Mobile portal and consists of both off-line and on-line modules. As a result, the windows mobile application has a similar look and feel, and the same advantages as the users have on the desktop application.