iMed: Local Hospital Solution for Healthcare Industry

iMed is designed to handle each process of a healthcare service at a large hospital with a capacity of 200 beds and higher.

The solution, developed with J2EE and based on Web technology, runs on an open-license concept, which allows hospitals to plug in software developments and updates to the existing iMed solution.

International Medical Software managing director Kongkiat Kespechara said the solution is highly flexibility and can be scaled depending on the hospital server's load. It can help the hospital increase the efficiency of its routine services and management processes.

The solution comprises 18 modules with 2,000 functions spread across an out-patient system, in-patient system, dental clinic system and inventory management system.

"This system can be run on an open-source database and application server," Kongkiat said.

This software is being used in 12 large-sized government as well as private hospitals. It aims to increase the number of hospitals using iMed to 15 by the end of the year.

Kongkiat said iMed is currently in the development stage and is being embedded with an application-service provider (ASP) feature.

In the near future, instead of investing in a software licence for using iMed, hospitals can lower their IT costs with a "pay-per-use" model. Leveraging software-as-a-service (SaaS) concept, hospitals can select and pay for specific software modules, services or applications rather than investing in the complete package at one go.

 "The ASP model of iMed has been designed in line with the trend of hospitals branching out into satellite clinics. With iMed ASP, hospitals can expand their clinical networks without spending on expensive software," Kongkiat said.

Apart from the ASP feature, iMed is also embedded with a "single ID patient" feature that allows hospitals to assign a hospital number (HN) to their patients. With HNs, hospitals can service patients faster and more efficiently.

 "Patient information is stored in the hospital's database and can be accessed by satellite clinics. They can retrieve medical records and treatment history by keying a patient's hospital number," Kongkiat said.

iMed has also come out with open licence that allows hospitals to add applications to the core system without paying for a separate licence.

 "We train them during the initial implementation and provide them the option of developing the software further. They can develop plug-in applications according to their requirements and add them to the system themselves without having to pay us," the managing director said.

International Medical Software is a private company spun off from Hospital OS a group of software developers who develop open-source software for hospitals with a capacity of less than 200 beds.