Whitepapers
Onesys Navigator in the Hospital Information System... and beyond
What’s in store for
doctors and nurses and patients?
March
12, 2009
John Koivukangas, MD
Jaakko Alamäki, MS
Let’s start with doctors and patients and hospitals. Doctors
have always wanted to keep things simple. We used to mark important radiological
films with tape or paper clip, and have the radiologist circle or draw arrows
to important findings. We used to write by hand important notes during the
patient’s visit to the hospital on forms separate from the dictated typewritten
paper record. And the images and papers were delivered on foot and on demand to
where they were needed.
Of course, all of this seems highly inefficient today. Now all the information is digitally stored
on servers and can be accessed anywhere in the hospital system. Clinicians are
faced with huge amounts of digital information, and need new ways to simplify
access to the most important, selected patient information. The problem is that
this information is scattered in many different kinds of databases, all of
which need to be scoured over and over again in order to repeatedly find the
essential information, while patients are waiting outside the clinic door, in
the operating room and on the patient ward.
And patients want to be adequately informed. They want
access to their information. They take important tests (blood sugar, for
example) at home, and they want to record important symptoms and health related
events. They travel a lot. They simply want important information to be
recorded and accessible from any place, at any time, even with mobile devices.
Enter Onesys … We developed a Graphical User Interface, a
new “window” to the patient’s digital information scattered all over the health
care system. Designed to “simplify, simplify, simplify”, the Onesys Navigator
is currently used in hospitals to integrate especially the two most complicated
and massive databases, the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) and the radiological
Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS). And, yes, it does work with
mobile systems.
Now, any information in any database connected to the
hospital information system (HIS) can be gathered together and stored on this
unique workspace. It saves time, reduces hassle, and improves quality of care.
Once again, now in the digital age, doctors can keep things simple.
This time, however, patients can also use this “window” to
the health care system, anywhere, anytime, even with mobile devices.
Our vision? This unique graphical user interface, the Onesys
Navigator, because of the logic behind it, will enable people to manage all
kinds of health related information, as doctors and nurses and other health
care personnel “within the system”, and as patients and consumers who actually
own their personal information and want to truly live with it.
Where are we now? Please read on …
Onesys Navigator (ON) software is
a Graphical User Interface for managing and visualizing pertinent patient
information stored in hospital databases. It has been developed by clinicians
for clinicians, allowing them to collect relevant information onto a patient
specific workspace and to write annotation notes related to the patient
management process. Created patient workspaces can be accessed throughout the
hospital network allowing physicians to e.g. view
patient’s treatment process history in the outpatient clinic, open a surgical
plan in the operating room and access relevant information at the point of
care.
Onesys Navigator consists of ON Client and ON Server software
Figure 1 shows the Onesys Navigator installation in hospitals. The ON Client is installed to doctors’ computers (office, ward, outpatient clinic, operating room…) and integrated to the EPR and PACS. The ON Server is installed to server hardware in the hospital network.
Figure 1. Onesys Navigator installation
ON Client
System requirements
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 or Windows XP
1 GHz CPU
RAM 512 MB
3D Graphics card 128 MB
Hard disk 180 MB
ON Server
The ON Server is database software that stores created patient workspaces. It is installed as a Windows service. Stored patient workspaces are very light (less than 20kB) and include annotation notes and links to the chosen images. When the ON Client is opened by the doctor, it is synchronized to the ON Server ensuring that the stored patient workspace is retrievable at any point of care.
EPR integration
Onesys Navigator uses user and patient information transferred from the EPR. The user logs into the EPR and selects a patient. The ON Client is then started from the ON icon created to the EPR. The user (name) and patient information (name and ID) are transferred from the EPR to the ON workspace as starting parameters.
PACS integration
The ON Client uses DICOM connectivity for image retrieval from PACS. With the ON, physicians create links to the relevant patient images as they examine them. At follow-up visit or next patient encounter in the treatment process, only the chosen images are retrieved from PACS, thus decreasing the PACS traffic.
Now you, too, can start to work with us as a valued customer, and to imagine with us as an innovative partner… Whether you are the patient, doctor, nurse or other professional, or a company involved in technological solutions (internet, mobile, EPR or PACS, for example), please join us at collaborating sites using the contact information.