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Last updated: May 26, 2009

CEB Projects

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Project Lead: Frank Walker (senior electronics engineer).
Other CEB Participants:

The goal of this project, seen as a successor to DocView, is to develop a new collaborative tool to improve the delivery and exchange of medical and health information, especially information contained in very large files. MyDelivery is intended to enable biomedical researchers, administrators, librarians, physicians, patients, hospitals, and other health professionals to exchange medical information, regardless of the size of the electronic file in which it resides. This communication method is expected to be fast, easy, reliable, safe, and secure.

The MyDelivery project seeks to overcome three significant obstacles. The first, to discover a way to send not only large electronic files over the Internet, but also large numbers of files. The second, to create a way to send large files reliably over wireless networks, which tend to be unreliable, but which are becoming ubiquitous. The third is to comply with requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). To solve all three problems, the MyDelivery project focuses on the development of server-based software running on a cluster of Internet-based servers, and the development of client software for use by collaborators. The client user interface is designed to have the look and feel of email, without any of the disadvantages of email (e.g., limitations on attachment size and number of attachments).

The development work for MyDelivery has been completed, and a prototype system is undergoing in-house alpha-testing, during which issues are being identified, and bugs fixed. The current prototype meets all basic project goals. We have tested the ability to send over 17,000 files attached to a single message, in a HIPAA-compliant manner. In addition, the system has been shown capable of communicating extremely large file attachments, with the largest attachment successfully tested being 28 gigabytes in size. Finally, the system has been shown to reliably communicate over intermittent wireless networks. When alpha testing completes, selected outside groups will be given the client software so that we can conduct a thorough beta test to further evaluate the utility of this system. A website will be developed for distributing the client software for the beta test.