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Problem
Needed to speed up medical-staff access to patient data on miscellaneous systems, including IBM mainframes and AS/400s.
Solution
Used Verastream Host Integrator to modernize, integrate, and accelerate browser-based access to critical patient data.
Results
- Better patient care resulting from comprehensive, real-time data access.
- Improved productivity and satisfaction for doctors, nurses, and office staffs.
- A rapid application development platform in place for ongoing projects.
- A solution that easily adapts to Providence and Ascension technology migrations.
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Providence Hospital is a full-service, 349-bed medical and surgical facility in Mobile, Alabama. The hospital admits more than 15,000 patients annually, with outpatient and emergency room registrations exceeding 155,000 per year. Founded in 1854 and sponsored by the nonprofit Ascension Health network (based in St. Louis, Missouri), Providence has a 550-member professional staff with representatives from almost every medical specialty.
Keeping Up With Technology Advancements
The hospital had been using an older solution to provide integrated online patient information to doctors and other staff members. According to Cynthia Hyde, CIO at Providence, the solution had served them well but they were ready for next-generation features to provide more speed and flexibility.
“We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel,” she said. “We wanted an updated solution that would work with the long-term Providence IT strategy, would not require a lot of training, and would give us the best bang for our buck.”
She added that Attachmate® Verastream® Host Integrator not only fit that profile, but also offered some bonus features. Verastream Host Integrator exposes legacy data and logic as web services, XML, Java, or .NET components that can be selectively mixed, matched, and reused. No changes to mainframe-application code are required.
The IT Landscape at Providence
To deliver the best possible treatment, doctors need a complete set of up-to-date medical information on each patient. Data from diverse sources such as radiology, labs, patient histories, and pharmacy must come together to form part of the essential patient picture. Additionally, office staffs need to work with a different but related set of information including patient demographics, insurance information, and billing data.
At Providence, medical data is distributed across a network of IBM mainframe, Linux, and Unix systems, with Windows desktops in an Active Server Pages web environment, and about 100 servers in their Mobile data center. The core clinical and financial application is Siemens Invision, hosted by Siemens in their Malvern, Pennsylvania, data center. It contains patient clinical and financial data and runs on an IBM OS/390 mainframe. Doctors access patient information via a browser-based application called Providence Online System Exchange Internet, or PROSEnet.
Providing quick, streamlined access to such a wide array of systems can present some complex IT challenges. But as any good doctor knows, the right tools help make procedures go smoothly. That’s why the IT staff at Providence used Verastream Host Integrator to perform some behind-the-scenes operations on their information systems.
Verastream: Giving Users What They Need, The Way They Need It
The modernization measures have made medical information more accessible and comprehensive. With the Verastream solution running in the background, medical staffs now can access a greater variety of patient information, customized in the way they want it, faster and more efficiently.
Doctors didn’t have to learn a whole new system of data retrieval because the point-and-click PROSEnet interface works the same as it did before. And now they have more options available to put information to work in the way it can be most useful.
Before, IT and help desk staff were plagued with complaints from the medical staff. “As CIO, I was getting requests at least once a week for faster response to our PROSEnet application,” Hyde said. “Now, those complaints have gone away, so we can focus better on our current IT strategies and implementations.”
The Verastream Host Integrator Bonus
What’s more, Providence now has a new world of development flexibility at their fingertips. The Verastream paradigm has helped identify potential paths to interoperability in other hospital business processes as well.
“Verastream is a jewel,” said Hyde. “We’re looking at ways we can use the Verastream development environment to address other pain points. Taking critical data and functionality to other clinical systems is a win-win for our caregivers and our hospital.”
With Verastream Host Integrator, adding real-time functionality or creating new composite applications requires minimal effort. So as new technologies are introduced into the Providence IT framework, Verastream’s fast, flexible integration capabilities are ready help smooth the transition. And with Verastream, the foundation can accommodate emerging technologies being implemented throughout the Ascension IT infrastructure as well.
Furthermore, Providence has cemented a partnership with a vendor who can assist with a variety of IT challenges going forward. “We know that we can trust Attachmate to support our goals, get us there the best way, and avoid costly mistakes,” said Hyde. “They’ll always do the right thing for the customer and that’s a key ingredient for a business relationship.”
About Verastream Legacy Integration Solutions
The Attachmate Verastream product line accelerates the reuse of legacy applications in service-oriented architectures. This suite of solutions provides a complete range of mainframe and web modernization—from basic rejuvenation to customized presentation and sophisticated high-performance integration.
Verastream-generated services can be mixed, matched, and reused selectively to extend legacy functionality to new users or new composite applications. No code changes to legacy applications are required, so you can avoid risk while speeding up application integration, application development, and workflow enhancement.