Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 39

Case Study Example Previously SCHUH and its four regional institutions utilized different information technology systems that is, Picture archiving and Communications system (PaCS), Electronic payment systems and Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). They helped manage imaging data from computer tomography scanning systems and magnetic resource imaging. This ended up with patient carrying all the relevant medical records and results when they were transferred in the various hospitals. This saw an incredible long and time consuming process as the data was manually entered into the system. To make it worse sometimes doubled diagnostic tests thus duplication of work was observed as the different institutions could not easily share patients histories thus ended up with wasted costs and efforts. Timely delivery of test results from MRI, CT-scans and X-rays was also challenging due to different existing systems in the four regional hospitals. Preparing imaging data to refer patients to relevant physicians could take up to three days which majorly slowed the diagnostic process. SCHUH launched the integrated medical information systems (IMIS) project as a measure to solve this impending havoc. Main objective was to replace the information silos located at the four hospital sites with a centralized source of patient data, namely a data warehouse. IBM was approached to deliver the data warehouse which was to include storage systems for each hospital medical record and PaCS data. To ensure security and resiliency of patient record, each storage system is backed up offsite. Historical patient data is to be held for a predetermined time period before being archived as magnetic tape. The system transmits its patient data in between the hospital via a secure private network. Each hospital is able to access the data warehouse using a web browser. Consolidation of patient data in the warehouse has seen