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July 2009 Calendar

CS Masters' Thesis Defense

Title: Analysis of Service Oriented Architecture in a Hospital Emergency Room Environment
Speaker: Deepa Suri
Date: Monday, July 27, 2009
Time: 3:00 p.m.
Location: GMCS 418
Thesis advisor: Jo Ann Lane

Abstract:
During the last decade, the rapid rise of technology and its adoption in healthcare has lead to hospitals collecting a number of non-interoperable systems from diverse vendors. As a result, care-givers have no access to critical real-time information to aid in making patient care decisions. The burden of integration in this scenario has often fallen on care-givers, who are forced to access many different systems to complete one task. Healthcare organizations and the federal government have now realized the importance of interoperability and are looking at potential solutions to create a nation-wide interoperable healthcare platform.

This study focuses on the use of a service oriented architecture (SOA) based approach to solve the problem of the lack of interoperability in healthcare. In particular, the study looks at the analysis of a SOA based model applied to the Emergency Room (ER) of a hospital. SOA is an architectural paradigm and design model in which logic required to solve a big problem is broken down into small, manageable chunks, with each chunk addressing one specific part of the problem [19]. Using SOA, enterprises can assemble and reassemble these open, standards-based chunks or services to extend and improve integration among existing applications, support collaboration, build new capabilities and drive innovation at every point in the value chain [19].

In this study, key services required for SOA implementation in the ER are first identified and used to build a SOA model based on the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) Service Oriented Architecture Reference Model. The proposed model is then evaluated by using one of the six healthcare quality measures proposed by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) – timeliness. Time study results before implementation of the SOA model is compared with projected times after implementation of the model. The study results indicate that a SOA based model implementation will help mitigate interoperability issues in the ER environment and improve timeliness of ER service.
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