IBM has announced that multiple hospitals throughout Russia have switched from paper-based medical systems to a new solution from IBM and Complex Medical Information Systems (C-MIS) to provide fast electronic medical record exchange and unified access to many types of healthcare data, allowing doctors and medical staff to share information and access tests and lab results instantly to improve decision making.
Designed to help hospitals use all their information more effectively and provide patients higher quality care, the system was first used at the Municipal S.Z. Fisher Hospital No. 1 in Volzhsky in the Volgograd region of Russia. Similar projects are now underway at other public hospitals throughout Russia including Leningrad, Kirov, Pskov and Vladimir regions, Republics of Khakassia and Udmurtia, Perm Territory and Moscow.
The need for new health information technology throughout Russia was driven by stricter medical information requirements, the need for more secure access to patient information, and growing paperwork that takes doctors away from caring for patients. "The solution developed by IBM and C-MIS helps solve numerous problems," said Roman Novitsky, CEO of Complex Medical Information Systems. "First, it provides a single electronic tool for control, accounting and planning which leads to improved operation and higher quality of service. Second, the solution consolidates all medical, administrative and financial processes, thus creating a unified information space at the hospital." In addition to digitizing and providing access to electronic patient records, it also helps automate many business processes throughout the hospital such as work scheduling for doctors, nurses and staff, scheduling medical exams and house calls, as well as automating temporary disability registrations. Document exchange automation enables performance monitoring and helps prevent submission of inaccurate information about healthcare institutions to the Healthcare Committee. It also ensures secure data exchange and enhances interaction among medical workers to help improve quality and effectiveness of medical service.
"To develop this medical record exchange system we considered IBM, Oracle and Microsoft platforms and chose IBM Lotus Domino," said Roman Nowitskiy, CEO of Complex Medical Information Systems. " We selected Lotus Domino because it is a multiplatform solution and it can be implemented with various operating systems to ensure flexibility in addressing the IT challenges faced by medical institutions." "Advantages of this software include fast and low-cost electronic document exchange implementation," said Alexandre Kotov, IBM Russia healthcare industry. "In addition, it helps improve communication among hospital staff and external users such as pharmacists, additional nursing staff or hospital contractors while providing mobile access to the information system via IBM Lotus Domino applications."
