NASCIO Awards

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

2002 Awards: Innovative Use of Technology

RECIPIENT:
Texas
ClinicStation: Improving the Healthcare Enterprise with Web Services


Front row, L-R: Jeanne Fragnoli, Catherine Schranz, Stan Hildebrand Back Row, L-R: Kevin McEnery, Donald Brath, Joseph Light, Charles Suitor, Becky Downs (not pictured)

Front row, L-R: Jeanne Fragnoli, Catherine Schranz, Stan Hildebrand
Back Row, L-R: Kevin McEnery, Donald Brath, Joseph Light, Charles Suitor, Becky Downs (not pictured)

A critical aspect of effective delivery of healthcare is the instant availability of timely and complete patient information. Given that no commercially available system was judged to provide an integrated method of results review, image display, and dictation, the Diagnostic Imaging Informatics teams decided to develop one. In this process, rather than create an entirely new Electronic Medical Records system, the team leveraged existing legacy systems through the utilization of web services.

ClinicStation, developed at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, utilizes a web services data access model to leverage existing clinical databases into an integrated clinical display. Web services are software applications that create an XML-based method to access databases or other programs. Enabling legacy database access via web services bypasses the traditional resource intensive complexity of replicating existing clinical information databases in a central repository. The web services model also allows an extensible development environment to efficiently implement customized versions of ClinicStation for a variety of display devices.

"My congratulations to The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and the ClinicStation Project Team for receiving the 2002 NASCIO - Innovative Use of Technology Award. As a web services-based application, ClinicStation has deployed innovative technology which clearly improves the efficiency of patient care at the nation's top ranked cancer hospital."
Governor Rick Perry, State of Texas

"My congratulations to The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and the ClinicStation Project Team for receiving the 2002 NASCIO - Innovative Use of Technology Award. As a web services-based application, ClinicStation has deployed innovative technology which clearly improves the efficiency of patient care at the nation's top ranked cancer hospital." Governor Rick Perry, State of Texas

A critical component of ClinicStation is the integration of medical image distribution. Formerly, clinicians needed to request the film jacket or travel to the film library to review patient's images. Delays in patient care occur while the film jacket is located. With ClinicStation, clinicians can instantly review studies throughout the healthcare enterprise. The availability of digital images is not unique. However, at institutions with Electronic Medical Records (EMR), the image display application is usually not integrated but available as a separate application.

With Clinic-Station, M. D. Anderson already largely fulfills the upcoming HIPAA confidentiality requirement. The requirement states that all accessions of patient's medical record must occur by authenticated users with a role in the patient's care and an audit trail of these accessions must be maintained. Financial penalties for non-compliance are substantial.

ClinicStation was internally developed with a core development team of just three individuals. Development cost is estimated at approximately $200,000. Annual return on investment is estimated at a minimum of $2.5 million annually accounting only for improved efficiencies of digital image review compared to film based image review.

ClinicStation received over 300,000 patient queries per month and over 1,000,000 clinical documents reviewed per month on the system in June 2002. Over 6,000 clinical personnel access ClinicStation with peak utilization at over 1,100 simultaneous users.

SECOND PLACE:
Kentucky
TRIMARC - Automatic Incident Recording System

THIRD PLACE:
North Carolina
Flood Plain Mapping