Need to find a hospital patient room? Here’s an app started for that.

[Kel Mohror]

This the UI for Maze_No_More.

Stalled … your insights and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

This Android smartphone way-finding app  enables anyone to quickly get to a–

·        patient room

·        waiting room

·        clinic or

·        meeting room, videoconference room, training/class room.

in Tacoma General Hospital and Mary Bridge Children’s Health Center.

The hallway-by-hallway directions will be protected by a federal copyright registered at the U.S. Copyright Office.

Directions to the Emergency Department, Pharmacy and the cafeteria from any entrance, nearest valet & self–parking, Baker Center and Jackson Hall will be included in the copyright-protected content.

 

This app can serve as a template for the way-finding efforts of other health systems and businesses that have multi-building campuses and a lot of non-employee foot-traffic. By evaluating room numbers, building designations or other destination identifiers, an app can be readily developed to eliminate “getting lost” in hallways and the “it’s a maze” perception.

 

…no_more(1) is disabled ckbxs. 

Odd behavior results–

·        textbox input of room number 701 and tapping “Get Directions” BTN displays the–

o  “You provided” LBL and global variable roomNum

o  mint-grn LBL bkgnd & text and

o  hallway-by-hallway directions.

·        inputting 702 – 708 and tapping the “Get Directions” BTN–

o  does display the “You provided” LBL and global variable roomNum

o  DOES NOT display the mint-grn LBL bkgnd nor text.

o  However the hallway-by-hallway directions ARE displayed.

·        inputting valid 8nn room numbers and tapping the “Get Directions” BTN–

o  801 displays nothing

o  810 as the first number when the app is started or restarted–

v  does display the “You provided” LBL and global variable roomNum

v  does display the mint-grn LBL bkgnd & text but

v  DOES NOT display the hallway-by-hallway directions.

v  subsequent to other 8nn inputs, 810 displays only the “You provided” LBL and global variable roomNum.

Two other modules for two other buildings using only If-Then-Else-If-Then marvelously produced the expected outputs. I don’t understand how the ckbxes could warp the app so thoroughly.

 

But the final Else “not here” warning blocks still function.

 

The AppStory

Time is one of the most valuable assets we have. It should not be wasted wandering around a hospital campus looking for a room or a meeting.

 

But with the tap of a button, wandering is replaced with way-finding by-

 

·        patients and their family members (local, regional, national)

·        NYPs (not yet patients)

·        friends

·        visitors (local, regional, national)

·        clergy

·        volunteers

·        social service workers

·        new and existing employees

·        health care providers

·        personnel in law enforcement, CPS, temp agencies and other organizations

·        healthcare contractors and vendors

·        delivery personnel

·        transportation service providers

·        meeting participants and

·        others who are unfamiliar with the campus.

 

You will immediately see how to get where you want to go; no more time wasted getting lost or non-scenic touring to find a room or an exit.

 

This app eliminates confusion, replacing it with the "right paths."

Respectfully,

Kel

[Ghica]

Is there a question?
Cheers, Ghica

[Abraham Getzler]

To help some one navigate you need to give them a way to

specify where they are now, and where they want to go, plus

keep a list of graph nodes and edges naming locations and the

connections between locations.

for an example, see this doc and app ...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S8eZBKBvtFzafH51a3bKnw_iBVHRnjHaEY1Zbjzscb0/edit?usp=sharing

My sample table only has links from large to small.

Your table would need links (rows) from neighboring location to location,

adding a link for each direction.

ABG

[Kel Mohror]

In the destinations app I ask for a room number, ABG and use that to provide correct directions to it from one of three entrances. For a non-patient room, checkboxes are used to provide correct directions.This app assumes way-finding from the most-heavily used entrance. Later versions of the app will ask for the entrance a person came in, each which requires a different orientation and subsequent somewhat different directions.

Putting checkbox blocks in an if-then-else-if-then structure causes the odd behaviors described in the original post. I assumed a ckbx block would provide a true value similar to evaluating a range of room numbers for true / false.

Disabling the ckbx blocks did not reverse the odd behaviors.

Two previous apps using the if-then-else-if-then structure and room number range evaluations provided correct directions to a textbox roomNum input.

Thanks for your insights and link to "Where's MIT?" I will examine the app and doc to better understand "The Big Picture."

Respectfully,

Kel

[Kel Mohror]

Yes, Ghica- why are the checkboxes causing the results described. I apologize for being verbose.

Kel

[Abraham Getzler]

You are doing something unexpected and undocumented when you

try to evaluate a disabled checkbox value expression in that if/then/else chain.

All bets are off.

ABG

[Kel Mohror]

I understand, ABG. I was thinking to uncheck the box with the disable command in order to enable checking a different box.

[Ghica]

Are you sure you understand?

ABG was referring to the disabled blocks in the picture a few posts back. What you have done is disabling an if statement. This means that everything that could happen after it is undefined, like in a casino. This is NOT the way you can develop code.

What you are trying to do is basically a maze solving program. There is lots of literature about this kind of problem, every route finding app such as TomTom depends on it, but it is not easy. 

If your hospital is not too large, you could have a list of predefined routes and try to make the best choice. 

Cheers, Ghica.