Author(s): Ftoon Kedwan
Background: This is an experiment report on Health Information Systems’ (HIS) integration project. It reports a successful implementation experience of HIS integration with the pharmaceutical Pyxis system that is used for medication dispensing. The Information Technology (IT) department in King Khalid Eye Specialist Hospital (KKESH) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia led this project to its final successful deployment. Rhapsody Engine successful adoption in the integration process helped KKESH achieve their productivity goals by improving hospital’s staff daily duties and clinical workflow. It also eliminated the system’s errors and alerting notifications.
Objective: This experience paper discusses three main questions: What is the power of systems integration? What are the systems’ integration standards? What are the main key performance indicators for IT related projects? It also discusses the implemented solutions that solved many potential problems that could be encountered by similar big organizations such as the KKESH. Several drawbacks of having isolated internal systems will be discussed. Similarly, many difficulties encountered during the integration process were demonstrated in detail. Henceforth, this experiment report can be considered as a road map for medical organizations with similar size and limitations should they consider integrating their internal systems for better health care management and productivity. Method: The adopted solution was implementing the Rhapsody integration engine to integrate HIS with Pyxis machines. To solve the systems’ compatibility issues, the ITD staff used a mapper tool to convert the query results from an XML format to the HL7 format. A shared folder was created between the Rhapsody Engine and the Pyxis system to read all the ADT messages seamlessly. Results: The hospital reported successful piloting implementation of this project. Some of the key project findings from this project experience are demonstrated and documented at the end of the paper, which would be of potential use to an organization who undergoes a similar experience. Conclusion: This project reported a successful systems’ integration project to set an example of an ever developing and prospering healthcare facility.
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