Addenbrookes and the benefits of the JCIS information management system
In this video case study, managers and IT developers talk about the benefits of the joint clinical information system, which gives multi-disciplinary teams secure, web-based access to patient information, and which was built using Microsoft technologies.
Cambridge University’s oncology department, Addenbrookes Hospital and the West Anglia Cancer Network developed their own information management system to cut waiting times and improve patient care.
JCIS [the joint clinical information system] gives multi-disciplinary teams secure, web-based access to patient histories, images and treatment information. It was piloted in breast and gynaecological services but proved so successful that it was rolled out to cancer services across the hospital and the West Anglia Cancer Network.
“JCIS makes it possible for clinicians to enter information at centre A that is then instantly accessible at hospital B,” says Mary Archer, chair of Cambridge University Hospitals foundation trust. “All the stages of a patient’s treatment are entered and it also does an awful lot of administrative work like sending out letters to patients and GPs.”
The benefits of DIY
The system was built in-house because there was no commercial solution that could meet the unit’s requirements. Dr James Brenton, Cancer Research UK senior clinical research fellow at Cambridge University, says this was a “big task” so it was important to use existing skills-sets, which were focused on Microsoft technologies.
“We took the minimum cancer data set and built a database out of that,” he adds. “But we needed some glue in the middle to make it easy to build this system and for that we went to Dataline Software and bought their i5 system [a unique tool for publishing SQL databases].
“That allowed us to use the Microsoft technologies we already knew to rapidly script and build the system, bringing together clinicians and developers in a very easy partnership.”
JCIS uses Tablet PCs and mobile technologies so that data can be captured during clinics and shared electronically. Dr Brenton argues there are good reasons for trusts to develop this kind of system while they are waiting for solutions from NHS Connecting for Health, the agency in charge of digitising the NHS.
Firstly, he says, they will get something that is “right for their own needs and business processes” and secondly they will be able to move quickly. “We have a real and pressing need to get clinical data, both for NHS returns and also for research, and waiting until the latter part of the decade was simply not an attractive option for us.”
Play the video produced by GBTV in 2006 (5 minutes and 40 seconds)
Related links
There is more information about Dataline Software, and some statistics on how JCIS has helped Addenbrookes to meet key waiting times targets, on its website at www.dataline.co.uk