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Tygerberg Hospital oncology unit provides online access to electronic patient records with Datacentrix


Cape Town, 25 Aug 2011

The Provincial Government of the Western Cape Department of Health's Tygerberg Hospital, a tertiary hospital located in Parow, Cape Town, has successfully implemented an enterprise content management (ECM) pilot within its oncology unit, using OpenText Livelink, a Web-based collaboration and document management system that is now part of the OpenText ECM Suite offering.

The unit now has a fully operational scan centre that converts physical patient files into electronic patient records, and has, so far, created over 6 000 electronic patient records, which are available on OpenText ECM Suite. The project was rolled out by Datacentrix, a provider of high-performing and secure ICT solutions.

“This pilot project was designed to prove the ECM concept within the medical records context of Tygerberg Hospital,” explains Trish Dicks, strategic account manager: Public Sector Western Cape at Datacentrix.

“It aimed to create a framework for electronic medical records by digitising records in the scan centre and to store these centrally and securely on OpenText ECM Suite, with the necessary access controls and permissions set up. In addition, by using relevant indexing metadata, the project was intended to give doctors quick and efficient access to a patient's records for both patient care and research purposes.”

An ECM foundation was put in place, which will now form the basis of the roll-out of OpenText ECM Suite, not only to Tygerberg Hospital, but also more generally within the Department of Health as a whole.

“The infrastructure was configured making the best use of existing equipment wherever possible, and at the lowest cost. The 6 000 electronic patient records available can now be effortlessly accessed by multiple users simultaneously, enabling doctors to more easily share information and collaborate on patient diagnosis and treatment,” she adds.

Earlier this year, accessibility to these electronic patient records was broadened, making the patient records available via secure Internet access, as well as via the provincial government network. This has allowed doctors to access and consult on patient records even when not on site at the hospital.

Says Dr Revere Thomson, senior executive officer: Internal Medicine at Tygerberg Hospital: “I have been using OpenText ECM Suite remotely to access patient records in the Tygerberg Hospital oncology department. It all works very well and I can even browse the information on my iPhone.

“I have also tried accessing the data on my laptop using the iPhone's personal hotspot feature, thus allowing me to access the data via 3G. This too works smoothly.”

Ultimately, the pilot has been a great achievement and has assisted in improved effectiveness, efficiency and - above all - service delivery to patients within Tygerberg Hospital's oncology unit, states Ahmed Mahomed, Datacentrix CEO.

“Following the success of the pilot project, the Provincial Department of Health is now in the process of investigating how best to leverage these benefits across all hospitals within the province.”

Datacentrix is a global alliance partner for OpenText, meaning that the company is an authorised reseller of OpenText products in the southern Africa region and is also an accredited service and software partner for SAP.

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Datacentrix

Datacentrix is a South Africa-based black-empowered company that provides full high performing and secure ICT (information and communication technology) solutions to the country's corporate and public services sectors. Its comprehensive offering ranges from the core areas of infrastructure and business solutions, to outsourcing and other related IT services, positioning it as a strategic long-term partner of choice to customers. The company listed on the JSE Securities Exchange in 1998 and operates from regional branch offices in Samrand, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban. For more information, please visit http://www.datacentrix.co.za.

Editorial contacts

Nicola Read
PR Connections
(083) 269 2227
datacentrix@pr.co.za
Stephanie Reynolds
Datacentrix Holdings
(087) 741 8711
sreynolds@datacentrix.co.za