conhIT 2014: Synopsis – Focus on Patients and Processes

Hospital information systems are a huge toolbox offering many functions. But what if users are unable to find the tools they need? Michael Strüter, managing director Agfa HealthCare GmbH and head of Sales IT and Imaging DACH, explains why it is time to take a closer look at the hospital workplaces of doctors and nursing staff.

Hospital information systems overflow with functions. A hospital workplace’s function typically depends on the module currently in use, which directly calls up processes relevant to that particular module. What is missing is a global view of all the processes. And because people experience processes in different ways quite often the necessary flexibility is lacking too. Hospital employees, be they doctors or nurses, witness an abundance of functions. Finding one’s way around an application is often cumbersome, so that a user’s impression is that their IT system gives them inadequate support.

Precisely. It is all the more important to find a solution that allows the customer to create specialist workplaces for users in a hospital environment. If we compare a hospital information system to a toolbox, then the ideal hospital workplace would be a table with all the tools clearly laid out for the task in hand, and nothing more. Our Synopsis/Synopsis Extended Framework achieves just that.

We will be exhibiting everything in detail on our stand at conhIT 2014. Our Framework shows the general viewpoint of the patient (Synopsis) and beyond (Synopsis Extended). The important thing is not only to gather data, but rather to combine it with the necessary processes. There is no point in bringing up all the relevant data and still having to dig around in a menu in order to give instructions, make prescriptions or determine treatment measures. All the important information needs to be there at one’s fingertips. We wanted to express this with the word synopsis from ancient Greek, which sums things up with a general view.

Ultimately, the aim is to streamline the process of tracking the patient from the moment they are admitted until they are discharged without making the IT product strictly define the process. The winners are the nursing staff who because of smoother procedures then have more time for their patients. Any mistakes which would otherwise have been missed due to a lack of orientation can be avoided. In this improved environment documentation is more complete, resulting in better profits.

Customers can request a developer's licence allowing them to create as many workplaces as they need, incorporating up to ten separate windows. Hospitals who do not want this can use plug-ins which we supply for creating workplaces in the customary way. These were co-developed by us and our Customer Advisory Board, an established part of the ORBIS user group. One example is the Rehab workplace which has been very well received by our customers. The entire rehab procedure – from authorising treatment costs, anamnesis, diagnosis, prescribing treatment measures through to applying for extended treatment and discharge reports can be organised using the general overview.

8 May 2014