WING – Entering a New Phase of Electronic Data Processing at the Gießen University Hospital

At the Gielßen University Hospital electronic data processing systems have been in routine use since 1975. In the early years developments were focused on ADT functions (admission/discharge/transfer) and laboratory systems. In the next decade additional systems were introduced supporting various functional departments. In the mid-eighties the need to stop the ongoing trend towards more and more separated standalone systems was realized and it was decided to launch a strategic evaluation and planning process which sets the foundation for an integrated hospital information system (HIS). The evaluation of the HELP system for its portability into the German hospital environment was the first step in this process. Despite its recognized capabilities in integrating decision support and communication technologies, and its powerful HIS development tools, the large differences between American and German hospital organization, influencing all existing HELP applications, and the incompatibility of the HELP tools with modern software standards were two important factors forcing the investigation of alternative solutions. With the HELP experience in mind, a HIS concept for the Gießen University Hospital was developed. This new concept centers on the idea of a centralized relational patient database on a highly reliable database server, and clinical front-end applications which might be running on various other computer systems (mainframes, departmental UNIX satellites or PCs in a LAN) integrated into a comprehensive open HIS network. The first step towards this integrated approach was performed with the implementation of ADT and results reporting functions on care units.

Discovering objects in a blood recipient information system

Application of object-oriented (OO) methodologies has been generally considered as a solution to the problem of improving the software development process and managing the so-called software crisis. Among them, object-oriented analysis (OOA) is the most essential and is a vital prerequisite for the successful use of other OO methodologies. Though there are already a good deal of OOA methods published, the most important aspect common to all these methods: discovering objects classes truly relevant to the given problem domain, has remained a subject to be intensively researched. In this paper, using the successful development of a blood recipient information system as an example, we present our approach which is based on the conceptual framework of responsibility-driven OOA. In the discussion, we also suggest that it may be inadequate to simply attribute the software crisis to the waterfall model of the software development life-cycle. We are convinced that the real causes for the failure of some software and information systems should be sought in the methodologies used in some crucial phases of the software development process. Furthermore, a software system can also fail if object classes essential to the problem domain are not discovered, implemented and visualized, so that the real-world situation cannot be faithfully traced by it.

From HIS to IAIMS: expanding the scope of information processing applications in a German university hospital

Since the mid eighties the department of medical informatics at the University Hospital of Giessen (Germany) has been engaged in the development of a comprehensive hospital information system. The installation of a campus wide network has set the basis to provide not only clinical patient-oriented information, but also general information resources for research, medical education and administrative purposes, thus creating an environment which in the U.S. became known as an integrated academic information management system (IAIMS). The underlying concept of the whole approach is to provide one-stop information shopping capabilities at the clinicians and administrators desktop in order to meet the increasing information needs of health professionals with the emerging reality of the potential benefits of computer and communication technologies. This paper describes the various steps performed to realize this concept at Giessen University Hospital and the evaluation results derived from analysis of the acceptance of these new technologies among our hospital staff.

WING--entering a new phase of electronic data processing at the Giessen University Hospital

At the Giessen University Hospital electronic data processing systems have been in routine use since 1975. In the early years developments were focused on ADT functions (admission/discharge/transfer) and laboratory systems. In the next decade additional systems were introduced supporting various functional departments. In the mid-eighties the need to stop the ongoing trend towards more and more separated stand-alone systems was realized and it was decided to launch a strategic evaluation and planning process which sets the foundation for an integrated hospital information system (HIS). The evaluation of the HELP system for its portability into the German hospital environment was the first step in this process. Despite its recognized capabilities in integrating decision support and communication technologies, and its powerful HIS development tools, the large differences between American and German hospital organization, influencing all existing HELP applications, and the incompatibility of the HELP tools with modern software standards were two important factors forcing the investigation of alternative solutions. With the HELP experience in mind, a HIS concept for the Giessen University Hospital was developed. This new concept centers on the idea of a centralized relational patient database on a highly reliable database server, and clinical front-end applications which might be running on various other computer systems (mainframes, departmental UNIX satellites or PCs in a LAN) integrated into a comprehensive open HIS network. The first step towards this integrated approach was performed with the implementation of ADT and results reporting functions on care units.