Microsoft in medical merger
Microsoft is first to market with a software standard for integrating medical
databases.
Its Appian technology is based on the Unified Messaging System specification,
which was agreed by leading software vendors last month.
Appian was developed in partnership with software integrator, Microscript.
Microscript's VP International, Paul Roscoe, said: "We're aiming for
shrink-wrapped plug'n'play - something that will integrate data systems in
five hours, not a bespoke system which takes five months."
Roscoe told Silicon.com: "I can't understand why no-one else has done this.
We're at least 12 months ahead of the game."
Appian is on trial in the Royal United Hospital, Bath. Kettering General
Hospital's security and development manager, David White, is also considering
it as a way of linking data from pathology and radiology reports, to clinical
systems and the patient's bedside.
He told Silicon.com that the market was there. "We want to cut the cost of
paper and repeated medical tests. Eighty five per cent of phone calls to our
labs are chasing up test results - we'll be saving at least #163#40,000 each
year by going electronic."
Appian enters a battleground of standards for medical IT. Although most of
the world supports HL7, a US standard, the UK prefers its healthcare
purchasers to use IT products based on UN standard, Edifact. Appian supports
HL7 but not Edifact - and neither HL7 nor Edifact are the EU's standard of
choice.
But this does not look like it will stop Microsoft. Melvyn Reynolds, who sits
on health informatics committees at the European Committee for
Standardisation (CEN) told Silicon.com: "In reality, Appian is unlikely to
face competition from a CEN-supported product because it will be able to
incorporate any emerging standards."
Microscript is currently in negotiations with the world's healthcare software
suppliers to persuade them to support Appian, which launches this June.
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see http://www.silicon.com/
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