Advanced Point-of-Care Clinical Information Solutions and Services
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Advanced Point-of-Care Clinical Information Solutions and Services |
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The key volume of clinical information in the healthcare environment is the patient record and information related to the patient that needs to be contained in the patient record. MsdC's systems design captures complex information in a manner familiar to the provider. Each encounter system is customized for each medical specialty to reflect that specialties' unique workflow requirements. Our applications are used at the point-of-care to assist the clinician and staff in the practice of medicine. Further the system operates as a key partner in managing healthcare service delivery as well as providing a central information resource for decision support functions. Workflow Engineering Workflow in a clinical setting provides end-to-end synchronization of processes and tools so that providers and administrators have the information, orders, tests, treatments, results and other data when needed and in a timely and compatible format. This allows clinical personnel a greater ability to assimilate, analyze and act on key information. medEncounter was designed by leading clinical providers and medical informaticists to follow and automate the business and operational processes for providers, clinical and administrative personnel. Naturally each medical specialty has it's own natural flow of work and each specialty module of medEncounter provides user workflow models that can be further customized. The system unites these specialty encounter applications into the overall workflow for the clinical enterprise. The concept of implementing a workflow approach will include the interface and/or integration of other systems, lab equipment, suppliers, devices and other items. medEncounter relies on industry standards such as HL7, DCOM, CORBA, EDI and other technologies to provide interoperability so that the information design extends outside an organization. This increases efficiency, lowers costs and improves medical decisions. MsdC develops a workflow design based on requirements of the clinical enterprise as well as specific interviews in all departments. Prototyping the workflow is a key tool. We gather this information to create a preliminary workflow model and this is reviewed as a key ingredient in the overall technical design plan. Systems Design Strategy MsdC's architecture and design process provides a quality and controlled methodology for the development and deployment of integrated applications. We use computer industry standards in the design and coding of applications. Our development cycle begins with a formal review of specifications and requirements including style and ergonomic considerations. We prototype applications as a part of our application development in order to validate the design with our customers. Example Software Development Process
We design customer solutions based on the creation of a central, global patient information network. Uniting information from many sources in a healthcare organization provides significant benefits and efficiencies. Interfaces and communication portals are designed based on a communications infrastructure that includes the Health Level 7 (HL7) industry protocol and others as needed for particular interfaces. HL7 is one of the key communication standards between medEncounter and other non-MsdC applications. Applications and information in a clinical environment must be available 24x7 without corrupted or lost information. Reliability and availability are cornerstones in our architecture and designs. We build reliability into the fabric of our networks, applications and database management system. This includes designing with multiple redundant system components (e.g. power supplies, I/O devices, etc.), networks, systems, data storage arrays (RAID, SAN, NAS) and rapid failover technology (distributed systems, server clusters, failover system utilities). We build reliability into each individual computer server and associated storage devices. Our failover designs have been proven over a 19 year period with over 99.9% uptime and no loss of data. Our systems are highly scalable and are proven to support over 1000 online concurrent users. We support a fully distributed network over a geographically dispersed area (e.g. multiple offices, hospitals, clinics). The medEncounter information storage archive is scalable to store and support tens of millions of patient records (multiple "terabytes" of online information). Core Technologies
We provide our system solutions as complete "turn-key" designs which integrate into your existing environment. Our systems are integrated using a communications infrastructure that can include Local Area Networks (LAN), Wide Area Networks (WAN), Intranet, Extranet, Internet - Virtual Private Network (VPN), Dial-up - also Wireless LAN capabilities are supported. In the design of our systems we focus on key areas:
Technology used is industry or defacto standards such as HL7, ANSI C language compilers, UNIX, Linux, TCP/IP, Java, HTML, EDI, etc. This allows us to incorporate new technologies as they emerge. As an example we have recently incorporated secure wireless technology with handheld tablets. The core medEncounter applications are hosted on multiple, redundant UNIX/Linux operating system 64-bit servers. Client devices can be any computer that supports Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Safari browser technology. Storage technology is an important ingredient and we implement designs based on the customer's short and long-term requirements. This can include simple RAID disk arrays to clustered servers utilizing sophisticated fibre-channel Storage Area Networks (SANs). Our Technology Photo Gallery Below is our photo gallery with examples of medEncounter systems design and medEntry screens (click to view full size).
Operating System Technologies At the system level, we provide practical, supported solutions based on certain key technologies including:
Centralized Secure Information - Online 24x7 Your clinical patient information has the most utility when united into a centralized, easily accessible, and secure information network. Key clinical information captured by our system is integrated with other administrative and/or other medical information systems to create a enterprise-wide information repository. This becomes a strategic resource for managing care and costs. Clinicians, staff, administrators and medical research personnel are able to instantly and securely access patient-critical information to practice medicine and help make decisions. Clinical and administrative processes also become more efficient. Developing such an integrated information storage and sharing capability is a key strategy in connecting patient information at the core of your clinical environment. Our solutions will help your organization create structural and operational efficiencies that improve overall practice quality and consistency while containing costs and increasing related billing service revenues. The system is designed to be highly secure and to never delete data. MsdC employs multiple levels of security and user access is controlled starting at the communications access point. Each workstation accesses the medEncounter applications using a local network, Virtual Private Network (VPN) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) 128-bit encryption technology. From the point of login (username/password) each user has been granted certain information-access privileges. These access rights determine which patient medical records can be accessed and what information within those records can be accessed. Additionally the system allows for location-specific privileges. Clinicians have the ability to utilize electronic signatures to denote their review of patient records. Other technologies that are compatible with medEncounter include Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) encryption or digital signature information tools, biometric devices for workstations and other security access and management tools. In addition to securing the server data and the access points MsdC's approach is to consider the security of the entire flow of information and access methods - both by users and other applications. medEncounter has been designed to be safe from intrusion (hacking) using multi-level security controls and has not been successfully infiltrated by any intruder or computer virus. Additionally no patient information has ever been lost or compromised. medEncounter is compliant with the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) regulations for privacy and security.
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MsdC
is a medical information technology (IT) solutions
company that applies our significant expertise to the
design and deployment of sophisticated clinical
information systems. Our
technology strategy creates a global information
resource for the clinical requirements of the medical
enterprise. Systems can be a central site or
fully distributed and networked. To accomplish
this, we employ medical informatics which is
the systematic application of computer science to
clinical problems. 
Other
Access Devices - MsdC has
recently extended device support to Tablet PCs.
Tablet PCs and laptops linked via secure wireless
provide a highly portable, secure and convenient
method to access applications. The Tablet PC's
ability to recognize handwriting and directly
convert this into typed text in medEncounter data
entry fields provides a powerful capability that
can save on medical transcription costs and, more
importantly, record key information on-the-spot.
