Oracle, IR deliver data to doctors

Moses Cone Health System's MData Enterprise System extracts patient data from various hospital information systems and delivers it to physicians' "http://techupdate.cnet.com/enterprise/0-6133429-720-6618698.html">Palm OS devices. The system runs on a TCP/IP Ethernet network inside the hospital's Cisco Systems Inc. PIX 515 UR Firewall Appliance firewall on a Dell PowerEdge 4400 running Windows 2000 Server. MData's Translation Engine retrieves data in medical-industry standard HL7 format from the hospital's disparate information systems, including an IDX LastWord Admissions, Discharge, and Transfer system, a Cerner radiology system, a SunQuest lab application, an IDX pharmacy system, and a MedQuist transcription system.

Assimilated patient data is stored in an Oracle 8i staging database and delivered to the PDA via the Enterprise Conduit (based on embedded Extended Systems' XTNDConnect server software). The XTND Connect server runs on a Dell PowerEdge 4400 with 128-bit Certicom ECC encryption software. Physicians retrieve the latest clinical data by hooking up to an eight-slot Clarinet Systems' EthIR LAN ES208 infrared synchronization station running proprietary MercuryMD Sync Station software.

The MData system did not require a significant investment in new hardware, according to John Jenkins, CIO at Moses Cone Health System. Jenkins acquired only two additional Dell PowerEdge 4400 servers and six synchronization stations that the physicians use to download the patient data. He will add nine more sync stations by the end of the year. The doctors who use the application are required to have their own Palm OS-based PDA.

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