Redmond Burke and Jeff White, Miami Children's Hospital

The staff of Miami Children's Hospital's cardiovascular surgery unit makes house calls — virtually. Thanks to the wireless Web, the hospital's physicians can now monitor their patients from home (or anywhere else). Dr. Redmond Burke, the catalyst behind the project, called the practice “Internet rounds,” and it's just one facet of a program redefining the role of personal technology in the medical environment.

Through the efforts of Burke and biomedical engineer Jeff White (left), Miami Children's doctors and nurses now input patient information into PDAs; the data then travels via wireless modem to the hospital's main server, where it's accessible to all authorized caregivers. The database allows surgeons like Burke immediate and constant access to the children in their care, both in and out of the OR: “I wanted a system where we can have one hand on the patient, and the other on the patient's critical information,” he said.

Named chief of cardiac surgery seven years ago, Burke immediately moved to replace the hospital's antiquated record-keeping system. To that end he recruited White, a onetime aerospace engineer then studying at the University of Miami. “I'm the Jobs, he's the Wozniak,” Burke cracked. “Linking a physician with an engineer is a unique concept — we can do things together we never could have on our own.”

In April 2001 they introduced Palm handhelds to replace the index cards previously used to keep patient notes. Convincing fellow staffers to adapt to the new procedures wasn't easy, but in three months, the index cards were gone. The Web-based server network, which links all of the hospital's databases, followed earlier this year.

“It's thrilling,” Burke said. “We feel like we're creating a new way of doing medicine.”