Kettering Medical Center (KMC) is a not-for-profit, regional acute care
center comprised of Charles F. Kettering Memorial Hospital, Sycamore
Hospital, Kettering Youth Services, the Kettering College of Medical
Arts, and Sycamore Retirement Community. KMC also includes Kettering
Affiliated Health Services, which provides a host of other services
and programs that extend Kettering Medical Center care to homes
and businesses throughout the greater Dayton, Ohio, area and beyond.
The Challenge: Physician Access to Clinical Information
With more than 840 physicians serving more than 150,000 patients
a year, KMC needed an intuitive, easy-to-use and easy-to-access
application for patient medical data. Additionally, KMC
wanted to leverage their investment in their current legacy
systems and support skills, while also providing an application
that met the physician's needs.
Java here, Legacy there... Problem solved
Combining the "write-once-run-anywhere" strength of Java,
the availability and power of the KMC Intranet, and the
existing capabilities of legacy systems, KMC developed
an application that would meet the needs of their physician
community.
With assistance from IBM Global Services, KMC has developed
a Java-based clinical workstation application that allows
physicians to access patient medical information through
any machine running a Netscape Web browser. The application,
delivered via an Intranet and Java-enabled browser, eliminates
operating system dependencies, and allows for instant data
dissemination from any hospital location.
The clinical information resides on KMC's legacy CICS-based
health information system and is delivered over the
Intranet. The 3270 terminal interface has been replaced with a GUI
front-end. The application accesses data residing on the
mainframe through an MQ Series-CICS connection, and pulls
IMS data from several newly developed CICS-based "servlets."
The application provides access to many clinical reports,
including: Lab, X-ray, EKG, Nuclear Medicine, Cytology,
Surgical Pathology, and more.
More To Come
Based on the success of the pilot, the application will be
deployed ahead of schedule, and KMC is considering Java as the
platform for several more applications. This project has
directly impacted KMC by providing physician access to
clinical data, regardless of their hardware platform,
as well as providing an extendible application architecture
for enhancing other KMC systems.
History
Kettering Medical Center is accredited by the Joint Commission
on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. Services
provided through Kettering Medical Center include ambulatory
care, neurology, pulmonary care, ophthalmology, obstetrics
and newborn care, gynecology, gastroenterology, psychiatry
(both adult and adolescent), and physical medicine and
rehabilitation. KMC is recognized as a major cardiac
care center, is noted for its comprehensive cancer program,
and is known for pioneering high technology medicine, such
as positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance
imaging, in southwest Ohio. KMC provides many types of
surgical procedures including emergency surgery, open
heart surgery, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, and orthopedic,
ophthalmologic, gynecologic, cardiothoracic, urology, laser,
and endoscopic surgery. Supporting KMC's surgical services
are six specialized intensive care units that care for general
ICU, neurosurgical, cardiac, cardiothoracic, medical
pulmonary patients, and at-risk newborns.
Support services include a full complement of diagnostic
and treatment therapies as well as cardiac rehabilitation,
pulmonary rehabilitation, pain management and a sleep lab. The
Wallace-Kettering Neuroscience Institute is committed to
quality care, research, and education. The Institute's team
of physicians and scientists concentrate on diseases of the
brain and spine, including strokes, tumors, dementias, movement
disorders, and seizures. The Institute combines compassionate
care with new techniques and innovative treatments for people
with neurological impairments.
KMC's Web site can be found at www.ketthealth.com.