News
Microsoft announces hospital software suite
18 February 2008
Microsoft Corp. has announced the first results of its recent
healthcare software acquisitions, the Microsoft Amalga Family of
Health Enterprise Systems. The Amalga product lineup combines the "total
hospital information system" and radiology information system developed
by GCS Thailand, which it bought last October, and the
health-intelligence software Azyxxi, which Microsoft bought from
Washington DC-based MedStar Health in July 2006 (see the bjhc&im news
story from October 2007:
www.bjhcim.co.uk/news/2007/n710029.htm).
The software suite, which is not on sale yet, spans clinical,
operational and financial functions and includes:
- Microsoft Amalga. The new version of the product formerly known
as Azyxxi, Amalga is part of a new software category called unified
intelligence systems that allows hospitals to access and make use of
data sitting in isolated clinical, financial and administrative
systems. Without replacing current systems, it can capture,
consolidate, store, access and quickly present data in meaningful
ways for use by hospital clinicians and executives. Microsoft says
it is designed for hospitals and health systems that have invested
in a diverse set of IT solutions.
- Microsoft Amalga Hospital Information System (HIS). The new
version of the product previously named Hospital 2000. It is a fully
integrated hospital information system designed for developing and
emerging markets. It is built around an electronic medical record (EMR)
with complete patient and bed management, laboratory, pharmacy,
radiology information system and picture archiving and communication
system (RIS/PACS), pathology, financial accounting, materials
management, and human resource systems.
- Microsoft Amalga RIS/PACS. The new version of the product
formerly known as GCS. It is now available as a stand-alone system
as well as an integrated component of Amalga HIS. The integrated
architecture means that radiologists can use a single application to
manipulate and study images and access the patient medical record.
The workstation interface is optimized for radiologist workflow,
including support for predefined templates, an intuitive report
editor and voice-recognition capabilities.
The new hospital system is already being used in the US at MedStar
Health, a community-based network of eight hospitals and other
healthcare services in the Baltimore-Washington, DC, area. As part of an
early adopter program, the beta of the new version is in being tested by
New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Johns Hopkins Health System, Novant
Health, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, St. Joseph
Health System and the Wisconsin Health Information Exchange.
“We are excited that we are a part of this early adopter program,”
said Ed Martinez, chief information officer at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer
Center & Research Institute. “Amalga is the backbone of our Total Cancer
Care initiative. It provides instant access to the information, and
allows researchers to make and prove their hypotheses within minutes
instead of months.”
“We are upgrading to the latest version of Amalga HIS,” said Curt
Schroeder, group CEO of Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok,
where the hospital information system and RIS were first developed and
have been in use in their original form since 2000. “This application
has been a key part of our success, and we look forward to the new
features, such as a medication management system designed to assure five
‘rights’ crucial for patient safety: the right patient, the right
medication, the right dosage, the right route and the right time.”
Amalga is being targeted for release to manufacturing in the first half
of calendar year 2008. An early-adopter customer program is being
established for the released versions of Amalga HIS and Amalga RIS/PACS,
which are focused on healthcare providers in countries outside the
United States. The software will be on show for the first time at the
HIMSS 2008 event in Orlando, Fla., USA at the end of February.
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