Digital hospital

November 2010 Infrastructure

Selayang Hospital is the world’s first paperless and filmless hospital.

At the recent Cardex expo held in Sandton, Dominic Haazen, a health policy specialist from the World Bank, gave a presentation to industry stakeholders on IT systems for National Health Programs. With the much-discussed approach of South Africa’s own National Health Insurance programme, IT applications and related case studies will be crucial study for all involved.

Part of the presentation dealt with a description of one success story – Selayang Hospital in Malaysia, regarded as “the world’s first paperless and filmless hospital”. This hospital contains 960 beds, 22 operating rooms, 1200 PCs, 200 printers, 75 NT servers and four X-servers. The site began operations in September 2001.

The hospital provides a good example of an integrated e-Health policy, entailing the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve the health status of patients and the functioning of the health system. However, it also means change management, as the process of health care delivery and management changes.

The Selayang Hospital system integrates clinical, administrative and financial systems. Within this, the clinical system includes the Hospital Information System (HIS) and the Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS).

Clinical – hospital information system

HIS includes person management, scheduling, order management, clinical documentation, and pharmacy, lab and radiology information systems.

Clinical – picture archive communication system

PACS system is interfaced with X-ray machines.

Administration and finance system

The administration and finance system is integrated with the HIS so that any chargeable procedures or tests performed on the patients will automatically trigger the generation of the bills.

Overall, integration is not only between software applications but also between applications and equipment. Patients’ medical records, guidelines and clinical protocols are instantly available and can be assessed in one integrated workstation at any place and at any time in the hospital, provided that the user has the proper authority to access the information. Further to this, patients themselves can access the system to schedule appointments.

Making this new paperless and filmless hospital system a reality involved a complete re-engineering of the established, and therefore tried-and-tested, clinical and business processes usually employed in a medical facility such as this. It was noted that there was a heavy end user involvement in developing the new processes.

Measureable results

Measured in 2004, three years after operations at the facility began, the impact of the new systems was listed as the following:

* A 40% time reduction in admission, and a 70% time reduction for discharge.

* An 80% time reduction in reviewing patient records.

* Finally, 90% of the physicians stated that they preferred working with the system compared to the previous approach.

Some text quoted verbatim form Dominic Haazen’s presentation slides. Measureable results source – Haazen.





Share this article:
Share via emailShare via LinkedInPrint this page



Further reading:

Upgrade your PCs to improve security
Information Security Infrastructure
Truly secure technology today must be designed to detect and address unusual activity as it happens, wherever it happens, right down to the BIOS and silicon levels.

Read more...
The hidden cost of cheap networking gear
Duxbury Networking Infrastructure
When it comes to building a network, price is always a consideration, especially in the current economic climate, but there is a difference between smart spending and short-term savings with long-term losses.

Read more...
Open source code can also be open risk
Information Security Infrastructure
Software development has changed significantly over the years, and today, open-source code increasingly forms the foundation of modern applications, with surveys indicating that 60 – 90% of the average application's code base consists of open-source components.

Read more...
Fastest PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe SSD
Products & Solutions Infrastructure
Sandisk has unveiled the WD_BLACK SN8100 NVMe SSD with PCIe Gen 5.0 technology, an internal SSD delivering speeds up to 14 900 MB/s and capacities up to 4 TB, with 8 TB solutions available soon.

Read more...
Unified storage solution
Products & Solutions Infrastructure
CASA Software has announced the local availability of Nexsan’s upgraded unified storage solution, Unity NV4000, which is ideal for mixed workloads, from virtualisation and video surveillance to secure backup and recovery.

Read more...
Suprema unveils BioStar Air
Suprema neaMetrics News & Events Access Control & Identity Management Infrastructure
Suprema launches BioStar Air, the first cloud-based access control platform designed to natively support biometric authentication and feature true zero-on-premise architecture. BioStar Air simplifies deployment and scales effortlessly to secure SMBs, multi-branch companies, and mixed-use buildings.

Read more...
Back-up securely and restore in seconds
Betatrac Telematic Solutions Editor's Choice Information Security Infrastructure
Betatrac has a solution that enables companies to back-up up to 8 TB of data onto a device and restore it in 30 seconds in an emergency, called Rapid Access Data Recovery (RADR).

Read more...
Advanced surveillance storage from ASBIS
Infrastructure Surveillance Products & Solutions
From a video storage solutions perspective, SkyHawk drives, designed for DVRs and NVRs, offer high capacity, optimised firmware, and a reliability workload rating of hundreds of terabytes per year.

Read more...
Power surges are killing our networks
Duxbury Networking Infrastructure
With power surges and lightning strikes becoming an all-too-familiar threat to South African infrastructure, Duxbury Networking is calling on local installers and network integrators to follow proper grounding protocols.

Read more...
A passport to offline backups
SMART Security Solutions Technews Publishing Editor's Choice Infrastructure Smart Home Automation
SMART Security Solutions tested a 6 TB WD My Passport and found it is much more than simply another portable hard drive when considering the free security software the company includes with the device.

Read more...










While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained herein, the publisher and its agents cannot be held responsible for any errors contained, or any loss incurred as a result. Articles published do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers. The editor reserves the right to alter or cut copy. Articles submitted are deemed to have been cleared for publication. Advertisements and company contact details are published as provided by the advertiser. Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd cannot be held responsible for the accuracy or veracity of supplied material.




© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd. | All Rights Reserved.