NEW TREATMENTS FOR HEALTH CARE IT
IT MANAGERS IN THE
HEALTH CARE industry are getting more options to manage the myriad information
sources they deal with. This week at eHealthcare World in New York, Healthcare.com
will announce WebConX, a Web-to-legacy application integration tool kit for health
care delivery organizations and health care information system vendors.
WebConX enables Internet application servers to access data in
proprietary and industry-standard formats, including Extensible Markup Language.
It also enables IT departments to create new Web-based composite applications
from disparate legacy applications.
The tool kit facilitates real-time
transactions such as queries about patient admission, transfer, discharge and
billing, said officials of the Marietta, Ga., company. Because patient data may
be in different systems, the kit retrieves the data; combines or divides it, based
on the request; and updates it in the disparate applications after a transaction
occurs, officials said.
For health care organizations looking for customer
relationship management software, SoftWatch Inc., of New York, last week released
Version 2.2 of its SoftWatch Relationship Server. SAS 2.2 helps health and medical
businesses deploy marketing and e-business initiatives for their Web sites.
The
customer-facing side of SRS 2.2 has new management capabilities, community functions
such as voting and surveys, and an "ask an expert" tool. On the back
end, new features include a workflow engine, an automated regulatory approval
process, data mining and analysis, and online call center support with interactive
chat to allow patients to interact with health care workers on the diagnosis of
some symptoms.
Besides support for Oracle Corp.'s Oracle8i database and
connecting into more corporate back-end systems, SoftWatch's SAS 2.2 can synchronize
information from health care devices, such as a blood glucose monitor, with the
Web site.
WebEBM Inc., a provider of medical diagnostics information and
treatment plans, enables hospitals and health plans to improve the quality of
their care by helping patients to better monitor their medical conditions, according
to CEO Paul Keckley. The Nashville, Tenn., company uses SAS to collect and maintain
different types of medical data and navigate deeply through it.
For example,
after diagnosis, SAS can monitor an outpatient's compliance with a treatment plan
by asking follow-up questions such as, "Are you taking your prescription
at the required intervals?" WebEBM then reports this data to the licensee,
which interacts with the patient.
"The movement of data between guidelines
is important," Keckley said. "[SRS] gives us more potential applications
in terms of product development and data reporting. We can look at data and isolate
aspects of a guideline and apply them to a discharge planning product for hospitals."
