Customer Case Studies

Medical Data Vision Co., Ltd., Using DataSpider Servista

DataSpider's Contribution to Rapid Development of Health Care Cloud Services

Medical Data Vision Co., Ltd., which provides services to the medical industry by making effective use of health care and medical information, is now adopting DataSpider Servista (hereafter referred to as DataSpider) as a system to collect medical results from medical institutions and convert and store them as data in CADA-BOX. CADA-BOX is a system developed by this company for sharing electronic medical records and medical results and for making payments. The company is focused on building a foundation for effective data collection and launching its new service quickly.


USER PROFILE

Along with data networking services primarily used for management analysis purposes at DPC hospitals, Medical Data Vision Co., Ltd. develops data services to provide the pharmaceutical industry and medical research institutions with valuable health care and medical information, collected on the principle of receiving consent and agreement from patients. The company maintains one of the largest medical databases in Japan, which has been uniquely constructed to store and make effective use of large amounts of health care and medical information, in order to improve both the quality of health care and the quality of lifs.

Mr. Tadashi Uchiyama
Second Development Unit, Head Manager
System Development Department
Medical Data Vision Co., Ltd.

Mr. Hiroshi Ozaki
System Development Department
Medical Data Vision Co., Ltd.


Background: Demand for the rapid collection and conversion of medical results


Along with data networking services primarily used for management analysis purposes at DPC hospitals, Medical Data Vision Co., Ltd. develops data utilization services to provide the pharmaceutical industry and research institutions with analysis data of health care and medical information, collected on the principle of receiving consent and agreement from patients. The company maintains one of the largest medical databases in Japan, which has been uniquely constructed to store and make effective use of large amounts of health care and medical information, in order to improve both the quality of health care and the quality of life.

One of the services provided by the company is CADA-BOX. This system provides a web service called Karteko where patients can store and view their own medical information, as well as the CADA Pay service where patients can pay health care bills on deferred terms. By linking these services to existing electronic medical records, this technology becomes a useful tool for hospital administration as well. In order for patients to be able to store and view such diagnostic information from their own tablets and smartphones, it is first necessary for the electronic medical records and medical examination results stored at the hospital to be imported into CADA-BOX.

Although the data for electronic medical records can already be imported into CADA-BOX in standardized SSMIX2 output format, the data for medical examination results is often in other non-standardized formats, and thus it is necessary to find a way to support these formats as well, according to Mr. Tadashi Uchiyama, the head manager of the Second Development Unit of the System Development Department. "The medical examination systems of various medical institutions can output data in Excel, CSV or other formats without developing a specific process. What we needed was a process to collect different formats of data and convert them into a format for data sharing. We hoped to introduce a new technology with this goal in mind."


Started operation only
2 months after the product selection


Completed development in less than
one month of man-hours


Service operation accessible to the
business department

Introduction: Appreciating the ease of use, rich and advanced adapters, and industry knowledge of DataSpider


At first, developing a new conversion process from scratch was considered, however if the data conversion process was being handled by the development unit, which possessed highly-skilled experts but in limited numbers, then expanding the service to new customers would consume even more resources. "In order to ensure sufficient resources could be allocated to developing other new services, we began to consider the benefits of utilizing an already existing data conversion technology that could be used easily by the business department as well," explained Mr. Uchiyama.

That was when they discovered DataSpider. "We considered DataSpider from various perspectives, such as what data formats it supported, whether enough input data types were available, whether the technology was easy to use even for non-developers, and whether it was possible to use on a secure platform in our company setting. It was for all of these reasons that we decided DataSpider was the best fit for our needs," said Mr. Uchiyama. For DataSpider, its large number of adapters and its versatility were highly regarded features, according to Mr. Uchiyama.

From the perspective of ease of use, it seemed simple enough at first glance. Moreover, DataSpider holds hands-on seminars on a regular basis which allowed the staff to experience the DataSpider technology firsthand, and the development department could reduce the amount of time spent on teaching. Furthermore, the DataSpider team already possessed valuable industry knowledge and could provide the necessary support for rapid development, which was another strength that DataSpider had to offer. "From the time of deciding on the product to having it up and running as part of our service only took two months. It was extremely valuable to us that the provider already had a firm grasp on knowledge in the health care industry, and we could convey our ideas to them easily. Saison Information Systems Co., Ltd. already had plenty of industry experience and deep knowledge of the health care industry. When we first explained our requirements and saw the system demo, we felt confident that what we imagined could be realized," explained Mr. Hiroshi Ozaki from the same department.

In the end, they decided to adopt DataSpider as the core technology for retrieving data from the medical data system of each hospital and converting it into a format that could be used by CADA-BOX.


Result: Less than one month later, service implemented and contributing greatly to business promotion


The service currently works such that an area is prepared in the cloud for each hospital that makes a contract with CADA-BOX, and the hospital uploads the data for medical examination results from the hospital to CADA-BOX. DataSpider retrieves the data only for the patients who consented to have their information used, and then converts it into a format compatible with CADA-BOX and returns it, so that patients using the CADA-BOX service can view the data for their medical examination results. All access to CADA-BOX is made through a VPN, in order to ensure the security of the service.

With the help of DataSpider, the service could be implemented in an even shorter period of time, was Mr. Uchiyama's appraisal. "If we had developed a new service by our own power, it would have taken as long as half a year from the system design stage including error handling to the development and testing stages. Thus, without the help of DataSpider, it would have been difficult for us to promote our business at our current speed." Development was conducted when Mr. Uchiyama's resources were free, and it took less than a month including testing.

Furthermore, since the actual operation of the service is managed by the business department side, the development unit is now able to expand service distribution to new hospitals with minimal resources. "The standardized process for converting each format such as CSV and Excel is prepared by the development department in advance, and then from the mapping stage onward the business department is able to actualize it in the field. It is a huge help that service distribution can expand to new hospitals without the development department needing to be involved each time," said Mr. Ozaki. The personnel of the business department have received training provided by Saison Information Systems Co., Ltd., so the work is able to be transferred to the business department smoothly, without any extra effort by the development team.

Along with the current CADA-BOX service, they plan to use DataSpider in the future for a wide range of work and services that require data conversion. "For example, the current business standard for providing information to pharmaceutical companies depends on the analysis of the collected data being performed by hand, so the process depends a lot on individual skill. We want to acquire all of this expertise with DataSpider," explained Mr. Uchiyama. Additionally, to streamline the process via automation, such as the reading of handwritten medical forms with OCR and integrating and comparing them with master data on data entry using RPA, they hope to further expand the use of DataSpider, concluded Mr. Uchiyama.

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Notes:

  • HULFT and other products related to HULFT are registered trademarks or trademarks of Saison Information Systems Co., Ltd.
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