Case Study – Healthcare IT
How Smartdata Improved the Physician / Patient Relationship
iDocData Software was founded by an orthopedic surgeon who saw the need for more efficient generation of medical documentation for electronic medical records. The software is used in medical offices, hospitals, and ambulatory surgery centers for documenting medical encounters and capturing data. The software is also customized to each individual physicians workflow limiting the impact of technology on the physician/patient relationship.
“Without the help of Smartdata, our software would still be in the dark ages. We are now scalable and ongoing costs are minimal. The software has now been running at multiple sites for over 5 years with really no maintenance. It just runs. The docs love it.”
Daniel J. Dunaway, MD
President, iDocData Software
Technologies Used
Technologies Used
Technologies Used
Technologies Used
Technologies Used
Technologies Used
Founded:
2001
Location:
Dayton, OH
Start Date:
2010
Business Model:
Dedicated Team
About Company:
Medidoc software, an electronic medical record document generating application, was started in 2001 by Daniel Dunaway, a practicing orthopedic surgeon. The software was eventually used in a number of physicians offices and ambulatory surgery centers but was soon held back by the client–server model in which it originated, limiting the ability to scale and grow the company. Dr. Dunaway consulted with a number of national software developers before finally deciding to have Smart Data update the entire software to a web-based application. The new software created was such a step forward that a was renamed iDocData software, reflecting the new capabilities for both creating and managing large amounts of data. iDocData software has transformed Dr. Dunaway’s company allowing him to scale the software with less overhead in ways he could never have done before.
The Problem:
Originally developed using a client/server model it soon became difficult to easily scale and support the software to multiple offices and hospitals. In order to expand to cover a larger geographical area and to minimize the overhead of supporting multiple systems it was necessary to convert the software to a web-based application. This would require changes to the overall structure of the software implementing state-of-the-art technologies. This was beyond the scope of the companies developers and they therefore looked for outside help.
Solution:
iDocData entrusted the conversion of their outdated software to a state-of-the-art technology stack to Smart Data. The original software used Java and xml to run the application and for structuring the data. This was converted to React and Json without disrupting the underlying data structure or impacting a large number of patient medical records. It was also interfaced with Epic, a leading electronic medical records system through an HL-7 interface. The data was then stored and accessed using an AWS cloud server.
“We were really stressed about the conversion to a new system because of potential downtime and loss of data. Surgeons are not the most patient individuals. It went off without a hiccup and the surgeons like it even more”
Tom Blank
CEO, iDocData Software
Donald Ames, MD
Orthopedic Surgeon
Key Issues/Challenges:
The greatest challenge facing Smart Data was converting the complex data structure that had been customized to multiple physicians and surgeons who were actively using the software without affecting their workflow or patient care. They also had to recreate, using newer technologies, the underlying mechanism that allowed iDocData to customize each physicians UI and document structure. This was fundamental to recreating the key feature that made the original software successful. This all had to be structured in such a way that it could be passed to the EMR with an HL-7 interface.
The Results:
Thanks to the agile development process of smart data, the conversion was successfully completed with minimal downtime for the physician users. iDocData software which was being held geographically by its original client/server model has now expanded with upcoming implementations in Florida and Colorado. They are able to engage with national companies that represent multiple hospitals and physician practices due to the cloud-based application they now run. The more robust data model has also allow them to support multiple clinical trials using the software with 2 studies about to be published.
Good support from management: With the management support and encouragement when team had faced struggles due to limited technical knowledge and slowly client got confidence about team improvement.
Post deployment support: The Post deployment support as discussed above is the added advantage they got from us.
Successful on-time delivery: Finally, as an outcome the project succeeded to be delivered on time to their client having them happy with quality and functionalities required.