Samitivej midway through IT transformation

Using innovative information technology to transform both its business and its services, Samitivej Sukhumvit Hospital expects to become a " Connected Health or Context Awareness" organisation before the end of 2011.

As well as providing improved services to patients and customers and  communicating online with healthcare partners, the hospital will be able to track the location of mobile staff in order to provide speedier services to people in need.

Crossing the "connected health" bridge is taking five years of infrastructure development and solutions. When it's complete, the hospital will be in direct online communication with business partners such as insurance companies.

Samitivej's transformation is aimed at increasing productivity and the quality of its services to better meet the needs of customers. Working with Cisco Systems (Thailand), it is creating an IT system that will integrate information with communication.

Samitivej was one of the first hospitals in Thailand to begin using information technology as a support for patients and customers. An early innovation was an "infotainment" concept. Patients or customers can connect with outside and with hospital services remotely and wirelessly from every patient room. Patients can enjoy themselves with karaoke from their sickbed. There are video-based interpreter services and medical-image sharing.

The hospital has installed hundreds of wireless Internet access points with intelligent network management in order to enable centralised management, support data-security policies and increase both the network's efficiency and availability. The system also provides a patient discharge system to reduce waiting time while patients pay their hospital fees before returning home.

Samitivej Sukhumvit Hospital's director Somsiri Sakolsattayadorn said information and communications technology was the key to addressing the challenges facing the hospital industry. It would play a key role in increasing efficiency and providing a productivity advantage in the healthcare and hospitality industries.

"Under the Connected Hospital concept, all departments of the hospital will able to communicate via a single network." Somsiri said.

Samitivej also plans to use radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology for tracking the position of both OPD patients and doctors by using RFID tags. It will also offer advanced-technology medical services to its healthcare patients.

Cisco Systems (Thailand)'s general manager of commercial business Vatsun Thirapatarapong said his company would provide IP phones and a medical-grade network as an infrastructure foundation throughout the Connected Health environment, allowing patients to take an active role in their own well-being. They will be able to directly access information such as daily schedules and make requests from their rooms with an ability to influence medical decisions.

"Information technology will play a key role in this transformation, to capitalise on technology investments now and in the future. Healthcare organisations need an integrated IT network that helps diverse entities to collaborate and communicate efficiency," Vatsun said.

Vanchai Savangwongsakul, the managing director of NextEntel, which is responsible for developing healthcare applications and medical solutions to support the Connected Health concept, said his company had to "appropriately combine" technology with particular business processes in order to enable collaborative health services. This improved time-to-treatment and facilitated access to customers, doctors and medical experts.

Somsiri said Samitivej planned to spend Bt500 million over the years from 2007 to 2011 to implement IT to enhance the quality of the hospital's services up to the existing limit of Connected Health.

The Connected Hospital will then be able to improve its services, reduce its costs and the complication of its work as well as improving the hospital's efficiency and the productivity of its healthcare services. Ultimately, the system will support a One-Hospital-in-Three-Locations principle, connecting the hospital's three branches at both business-to-business and business-to-customer levels.