Ottawa Hospital Case Study

At the Ottawa Hospital (OH) in Ottawa, Ontario, one of Canada's largest teaching hospitals, the faculty and staff are taking things seriously. For decades, the hospital has been on the front line of medical research in the Ontario region. Spanning three campuses, OH is renowned for its expertise in the fields of neurosciences, ophthalmology, perinatology, oncology, nephrology, transplant medicine, trauma care, bone and joint, and infectious diseases.

Most recently, however, OH is on the front line of Mobile Healthcare Management. OH needed a mobile computing solution that would enable its staff to communicate as close to real-time as possible with their Oracle 10.7 Material Management System. The requirement was for an accurate and dependable replenishment application that would allow them to track inventory on all of the medical supply carts in the hospital.

The Challenge
Gerry Joseph, Lead of the material management system for the OH, explains the problem that existed prior to the adoption of the Abaco system. "Our three campuses had varying degrees of barcode data capture systems in place," says Joseph. "Our main campus had a homegrown system with docking stations located in all patient areas, which enabled our staff to electronically post the replenishment requirements to the Distribution Inventory. Another campus, spread over 11 buildings, required the supply attendants to walk back to the distribution inventory with the handheld, review and then upload the information to the distribution system. With different systems running in each campus, and a pending go-live on Oracle Applications for material management, the need to streamline became very apparent."

The Search for a Cure
The hospital engaged DINMAR Consulting (Ottawa, Ontario) to lead the implementation for their Oracle Applications. DINMAR's search for an Oracle-certified data collection company led them to Abaco (www.abacoinc.com), a global leader in delivering wireless enterprise software solutions to Global 2000 companies worldwide. DINMAR was impressed with the independence of Abaco's products, which support open standards, work with the majority of leading ERP systems, and support a variety of handheld devices.

"Abaco's approach to solving our problem was quite simple, they just listened and then delivered," says James Allen, Director of IS administrative Systems. "They (Abaco) worked closely with our project team who explained our current processes, how we would like them to change, and that we were going live on Oracle in six months. Abaco started work and had the solution ready to go two months before our Oracle go-live."

The Solution
In order to meet the requirements of the OH, Abaco used its Abaco Bridge product as the basis of the solution. The Abaco Bridge is a Windows NT-based technology platform that enables mobile computing devices to connect directly with ERP systems. It is hardware independent and supports a wide variety of RF and batch devices including barcode scanners and fixed position terminals from all leading ADC equipment manufacturers.

A major benefit of the Bridge is that it gives users the ability to access information in real-time through RF connections. The OH wanted a real-time connection for their solution, but due to the risk of RF interference with certain medical equipment, this was not possible. Abaco provided an alternative that worked. The solution was a completely automated batch application that was as close to real-time as the hospital environment allowed without an RF infrastructure.

Utilizing Intermec Trackker batch scanners, a Lantronix MS100 Server device and the Abaco Bridge, Abaco developed a tailored solution for OH that simplified their ordering and replenishment processes.

A replenishment order takes three simple steps. First, the user scans the cart that needs to be replenished. Next, the items in need of replenishment are scanned and the quantity is selected. The final step is to place the handheld in the docking station to upload replenishment orders to the Abaco Bridge. The user has the option to scan multiple orders before the upload begins.

The addition of the Lantronix MS100 Serial Server was necessary to convert the serial interface of the T2090 communications dock to the TCP/IP Ethernet network connecting the communications docks on each floor of the hospital to the Oracle host, and eventually to a Raymond Automated Storage and Retrieval Carousel replenishment system. The carousel is located on the first floor of the hospital, and the elevator banks are used to shuttle the replenishment carts to and from the carousel system.

As an added functionality of the replenishment application, Abaco designed a contingency plan that instantly signals the user of a communication problem during the uploading process. The device first checks for a problem with the network, then the Abaco Bridge and finally the Oracle server. Further, all data packets are validated during the upload and if any of the data packets are corrupted or if any of the systems are down, an "execute contingency" message appears and the worker will know that the information was not sent to the Abaco Bridge. When the data is cleared and sent to the Bridge, it is formatted according to Oracle's Replenishment Open Interface requirements then communicated to the Oracle system.

The Results
The replenishment system has been live since June of 1999 and is running on all three of the hospital's campuses." We have been quite pleased with the user-friendliness and reliability of the replenishment application from Abaco," said Joseph. "The Abaco system allows us to supply the right items in the right quantities in a timely manner, and it has enhanced our ability to support our users as we are no longer supporting three different systems. Instead, we are supporting one user-friendly system across all three campuses."

When asked about user adoption of the new system, always a concern with IT managers, Joseph responded, "The training of staff took about 5 minutes, and now staff can work at any of the three campuses without having to be retrained." Expanding on the system's reliability, Joseph added that, "should we have any system or network downtime, the business is not affected due to the contingency process designed by Abaco."

With the implementation of the Abaco replenishment solution at all three campuses, the OH and Abaco are setting the standard in Mobile Healthcare Management (MHM). In order to enhance efficiency, consistency and reliability, the OH realizes that MHM and automation are a vast improvement over the previous, heterogeneous systems and processes. Patients, students and faculty are all aware that the OH administration is doing their part and are serious about saving lives.

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