Chiang Mai University and Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital Work With IBM To Build Medical Hub to Serve Northern Region of Thailand

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Sep 16, 2010, 03:29 ET

ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Thailand's Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University is working with IBM (NYSE: IBM) to connect all of its information technology (IT) systems and infrastructure to the university's hospital, Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital, to boost academic excellence for its medical students and improve patient care in the country's northern province. This is part of Chiang Mai University's efforts to create a "Medical Hub" for Thailand's northern region.

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Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital, part of Chiang Mai University, serves 2,500 patients per day and more than one million per year. The hospital needed new systems to help the hospital's 5,300 employees deal with the increasing amount of data from diverse sources including patient data from Thailand's national healthcare plan, government officials, social security and insurance plans. To address this need, the hospital turned to IBM to help transform its health information technology systems.

"Our vision is to be a top-ranked regional medical school by emphasizing teaching and research," said Dr. Niwet Nantajit, Assistant Professor and Dean of Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University. "We strive to meet the needs of people in the northern region by providing the highest quality of health care services. To achieve this objective, the faculty needed to transform its IT systems at the Faculty of Medicine and our teaching hospital Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital (also known as Suan Dok Hospital) which is one of the biggest hospitals in northern region to be connected with each other. The seamless transfer of information through technology will enable a more effective delivery of patient care."

The hospital's key mission is to provide patient centric services. As such, we needed a new system to link with our network hospitals in 17 provinces in north Thailand. The integrated connection will help to improve the quality of patient care by providing better access to information such as medical history, medication and treatment plans. Having faster access to lab results will also help us make better and more informed decisions."

The system uses IBM Cognos software powered by IBM System x to collect important hospital information from administrative, educational, inventory of medical and drugs, and research publication databases. The university hospital is also using IBM System Storage DS4700 and IBM Blade with SAN, to enable virtualization technology. The hospital aims to digitalize all medical records and written documents and keep them in electronic records within the next year or two. In addition, to store more than 500,000 digital radiography photos for easy and more efficient retrieval, the hospital tapped IBM for new radiology archiving technology which runs on IBM System i and IBM System Storage DS4800.

"This announcement reinforces IBM's commitment to bring smarter business and technology solutions to cities outside of Bangkok. Most healthcare systems are not designed for collaboration and interoperable information-sharing as valuable data often resides in disparate systems," said Kittipong Asawapichayon, Country Manager, General Business, IBM Thailand Co., Ltd. "Many hospitals are also dependent on processes that lack the agility to respond to a rapidly changing industry. Consequently, hospitals must work smarter by creating comprehensive and holistic views of patient information. Innovators like Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University and Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital are tearing down silos so they can connect doctors, patients and related parties to share information seamlessly and securely, and optimize expertise and processes."

IBM is creating a smarter, more connected healthcare system that delivers better care with fewer mistakes, predicts and prevents diseases, and empowers people to make better choices. This includes integrating data so doctors, patients and insurers can share information seamlessly and efficiently. IBM also helps clients apply advanced analytics to improve medical research, diagnosis and treatment in order to improve patient care and help reduce healthcare costs.

For more information about Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, please visit http://www.med.cmu.ac.th

For more information about Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital, please visit

http://suandok.med.cmu.ac.th/

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