The “Complex Technology Innovation for Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) Hungary to achieve personalised and quality dialysis treatment” was a complex ICT project for a global organization having a leading role in global dialysis care. Key objectives of the project were to manage better the company’s heterogeneous datasets, enable better data communication and streamline patient administration. Integration of data from patient administration and laboratory data subsystems also made the patient journey more efficient.
NETIS played a key role in several phases of this project. Main tasks included project and integration management for the IT Work Team, including implementing a middleware to improve data communication between heterogeneous software platforms. NETIS also provided individual software development (MS-SQL-based, complex data warehouse and dialysis software module) to collect and analyse all necessary technical and patient data from several separate locations. The new, integrated data management platform enabled FMC Hungary to have improved data quality and quality of reporting, while required less effort from human staff.
Client
Fresenius Medical Care is the world’s largest integrated provider of products and services for individuals undergoing dialysis because of chronic kidney failure, a condition that affects more than 2.3 million individuals worldwide. The group covers Northern-America, USA, Latin-America, Asia and Africa operating about 2757 dialysis centres worldwide, treating about 215.000 patients regularly, while about one-third of dialysis patients using Fresenius products worldwide.
Fresenius Medical Care Hungary currently operates 23 dialysis centres and supports their operation with various products, treating about 2500 patients on a regular basis.
Challenge
FMC had an extensive network of regional centres at various geographic locations in Hungary. These regional centres used different hardware infrastructure with a wide range of compatible software, causing difficulties to manage data or aggregate reports, requiring time-consuming and costly manual intervention. There was also a requirement to install a coherent and efficient internal info-communications network. Fresenius offers a premium quality dialysis service and expects the same level of quality from its ICT system.
The company intended to enhance its internal info-communications as well as data management. In addition, new applications were sought to serve patients at a higher level in the future. They were also exploring opportunities to include external funding in addition to their own funds, which could speed up the project and enable the organisation to carry out a complete upgrade.
Solution and services
FMC finally decided to replace its HIS system and develop a new dialysis module. NETIS has developed a data centre which collects both the treatment data and the technical measurement data produced by the water treatment system. This data is used for presentations and reports for the Management Information System. This data can be analysed to measure efficiency, individual or accumulated cost levels.
The applications required a new, reliable and modern server park. New servers were installed at every FMC clinic in Hungary. The smooth and uninterrupted operation required a complete change in the ICT paradigm. Therefore NETIS has designed and installed a Microsoft-based system, replacing the previous Linux servers.
MS Windows Server 2008 R2 had been installed to the new servers, while the database applications use Microsoft SQL 2012 The server applications are supported by two Server HP Proliant DL380 G7 servers per location, with built-in redundancy for the high reliability.
Users can access the new applications via a new, Cisco-based network. NETIS has installed a total of 201 workstations and monitors with preinstalled WIN7 operation systems and with 118 Hewlett-Packard printers.
Servers and clients are operated by a Symantec Protection Suite Enterprise Edition 4.0 software system. The centre and the other locations received borderline protection with an integrated firewall-router solution, which is based on WatchGuard. Eaton Powerware UPS devices support mission-critical central infrastructure elements and other essential system parts.
Data is saved and stored by using a Symantec Backup Exec 2012 V-RAY EDITION software system, while an HP StorageWorks MSL2024 LTO-5 solution operates the central archives.
Results
The main result of the project: the complex solution of the new HIS application, the new dialysis module with central data warehouse solution, supported by the modern and reliable infrastructure reduced the patient administration process from 1,5 hour to 30 minutes and improved the efficiency of the treatment and patient care. Mission critical applications also require an adequate infrastructure background.
The total value of the project was over 260 million HUF (about GBP 742 858).
Partners/Manufacturers: Microsoft, Symantec, Cisco, Hewlett Packard, WatchGuard, Eaton, Powerware, Béker Soft Kft. (Hungarian HIS developer).
Benefits of implementing a new Business Intelligence System: centralized business model: everyone sees the same result; self-service cockpit for making individual reports easily; easy to create Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from completely different areas; data mining possibility to reach detailed analytics; sophisticated authorization possibilities.
In the future, Fresenius Medical Group will continue to modify its systems to ensure they run at peak efficiency. With the upgrades and improvements made, Fresenius will experience increased efficiency, continuous monitoring and dynamic and proactive management.