Cogon Systems
Pensacola, Florida
Customer Profile:
Cogon Systems Inc. is a healthcare software company that provides hospitals with leading-edge information technology solutions (Patent Pending). Cogon Systems raises the standard for patient safety and clinical efficiency through data integration and mobile technology.
Customer HL7 Challenges:
To make Moment of Care™ Information Systems successful in both large and small/rural healthcare facilities, Cogon needed to reduce the time they spent developing HL7 interfaces and enhance remote support capabilities.
Customer Solution:
With NeoIntegrate™, Cogon lowered Moment of Care deployment costs and, with the help of NeoIntegrate’s remote support tools, they eliminated the
time previously spent on HL7.
Results:
- Faster interface creation
- Minimal HL7 maintenance costs
- Deeper HL7 functionality
- Lower site installation costs
- Increased company profits
- More time to focus on core product features and delivering end-user value
Mobile Access to Patient Data:
Cogon Systems provides caregivers access to patient information anywhere, at any time, no matter which departmental system has the data and no matter where the caregiver is located. Cogon delivers this with their Moment of Care Information Systems, which provides mobile access to host system data through HL7 interfaces. “This makes it possible for caregivers to retrieve up to date patient data anywhere, with any type of wireless device,” states Dr Huy Nguyen, Chief Executive Officer at Cogon Systems.
As part of their corporate mission, Cogon felt it was important to support rural healthcare organizations in addition to the larger facilities where wireless has historically been used. However, Cogon knew there were specific issues that needed to be addressed if they were to be successful in a rural market. Continues Dr. Nguyen, “Deploying in a rural facility means tighter project budgets, limited local IT staff, and requirements to support lights out/remote monitoring. Rural deployments also force more ownership for implementation and support on the vendor. Therefore, anything we can do to speed up site specific integration and enhance our ability for remote interface management reflects an immediate cost savings.”
Internally Developed HL7 is Expensive:
Cogon started HL7 interfacing the way many vendors do – by using a homegrown HL7 solution. Like most users of internally developed HL7 systems, or systems not designed specifically for HL7, Cogon realized their internally developed HL7 software lacked the flexibility required for quick interface development.
According to Cogon’s Chief Technology Officer, David Hsu, “Before we began using NeoIntegrate, supporting site specific flavors of HL7 often required code changes. This meant lots of development and lots of testing to make sure code changes did not impact existing interfaces. In addition, we did not have the troubleshooting and monitoring tools needed to meet the additional support requirements imposed by the rural setting.”
“When Florida State University’s Medical School contracted Cogon to provide their Moment of Care system to a rural hospital for a state funded study, and wanted installation to occur in rural facilities as quickly as possible, Cogon decided to switch their HL7 interfacing to NeoIntegrate.”
NeoTool Delivers:
Cogon wanted an HL7 subsystem capable of supporting any HL7 message with minimal implementation and no code changes. They required an HL7 subsystem that supported remote monitoring.
“While looking for an HL7 platform that balanced cost, flexibility, and long-term maintenance expense, we found NeoIntegrate. Key features such as GUI tools for reviewing communication/message traces, the HL7 Derivative Explorer, and interface monitoring were important in selecting NeoTool. NeoIntegrate is designed from the ground up to be easy to use as an application’s gateway to HL7. This makes NeoIntegrate an excellent choice for healthcare ISVs wanting to support HL7,” explains Dr. Nguyen.
“From the first I was impressed with how easy NeoIntegrate made creating connections and defining interfaces. In addition, NeoIntegrate’s management tools make remote support easy,” adds Mr. Hsu. ”
Equally important was keeping interface development time low and eliminating code changes for new interfaces. “Interface development for new Moment of Care sites is directly proportional to Moment of Care success. Every minute we can cut from our implementation schedule means we can focus on adding product features and delivering value,” continues Dr. Nguyen.
In addition to NeoIntegrate being a comprehensive, easy to deploy HL7 subsystem that was quickly integrated into Moment of Care, NeoTool proved to be a company who stands beside their product. This is summarized by Mr. Hsu when he states, “NeoTool provided both architectural and deployment guidance and support where needed to quickly and effectively deploy an HL7 interface with access to patient data. They are truly interested in building their business through the success of their customers.”
With NeoIntegrate incorporated into Moment of Care, Cogon is ready for any integration project – even those with a short schedule. By using NeoIntegrate’s trouble shooting and remote management features, Cogon is also prepared to remotely support the interfaces.
Solution Details:
Being able to access clinical data anywhere has a huge impact on the quality of patient care. As Dr. Nguyen states, “The clinical impact of mobile access to up to date patient data is that caregivers spend less time preparing each day’s rounds and have the ability to review disparate patient information at anytime. The security of knowing all of the data needed for an informed decision is readily available, from a single device that operates anywhere the caregiver happens to be, is invaluable to the care giver and the patient.”
Moment of Care uses HL7 to collect patient data from healthcare information systems such as reference labs, pharmacies, radiology, etc. The Moment of Care server processes and loads this data into a backend database that caregivers access using web-based applications and mobile devices. Using Moment of Care, caregivers are able to access real-time patient data anywhere they happen to be.
“With NeoIntegrate accepting HL7 messages, and passing HL7 data to the Moment of Care server as XML, deployment times for Moment of Care installations have been dramatically reduced,” states Dr. Nguyen. “We can’t say enough about how easy it was to connect NeoIntegrate into Moment of Care. In a matter of days we were able to provide our customers with an advanced level of HL7 interfacing.”
Summary:
For Cogon, NeoIntegrate’s Return on Investment (ROI) is calculated in both the savings realized on the Florida State University Medical School project and the savings for future Moment of Care installations. “The time savings seen during the Florida State University Medical School project pays for our investment in NeoIntegrate. Savings will continue with future Moment of Care installations as NeoIntegrate pays for itself repeatedly.” Dr. Nguyen concludes his comments, “NeoIntegrate’s deep functionality means lower total expense on every interface deployed.”
“NeoIntegrate’s features could never be built internally on a reasonable budget, and in time for quick time to market,” states Mr. Hsu. “Using NeoIntegrate, and having NeoTool supporting our HL7 solution, provides huge savings across our total HL7 costs.”
“Because HL7 interfaces could be quickly developed, we met initial deployment schedules. Since HL7 maintenance is easy using NeoIntegrate tools, we are able to make Moment of Care a practical platform for small/rural healthcare facilities.” Mr. Hsu concludes his discussion on NeoIntegrate by stating, “NeoIntegrate is committed to providing a great product at a fair price, while remaining flexible to customer requirements. If a vendor tells you they use NeoTool, you can rest assured their interfaces work.”
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| Cogon-Systems-HL7.pdf | 81.03 KB |