Al-Rahba Hospital is one of the most prominent hospitals in the UAE, located in its capital Abu Dhabi. It is a government, multi-specialty hospital that fundamentally provides healthcare services to the public. Al-Rahba Hospital is the first public hospital in the United Arab Emirates accredited by Joint Commission International and awarded as “The Best Rated Hospital in Quality Services 2008” among the public hospitals of Abu Dhabi by Health Authority - Abu Dhabi. It is a 163-bed, classified and designed as an advanced secondary care general hospital that delivers a vast array of diagnostic and curative services, which inevitably make it unique from other hospitals in the region. Al-Rahba Hospital is located in the Northern part of the capital city and close proximity to the highway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The hospital was officially opened on 16 August, 2003 and effective July 2008, managed by John Hopkins under patronage of SEHA and Health Authority of Abu Dhabi with a mission to provide high quality healthcare that will meet the needs and exceed the expectations of the residents of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and rest of the country.

 

The solution was implemented to help Al-Rahba Hospital build an Internet and Intranet portal. ITQAN designed, architected, developed and deployed the two portals to allow the public to access the information needed through the website and simultaneously enable employees to process the internal business processes and collaborate through the Intranet portal.

 

 

Al-Rahba Hospital was in critical need to overhaul its IT setup. The first step in transforming this department of the hospital was deploying an Intranet and Internet portal. The burden of manual processing is essentially eliminated through the Intranet portal, and a central repository is created that serves as an information and collaboration center for all employees in the hospital. On the other hand, the Internet portal was crucial to convey hospital information to the public, and act as a bridge between the hospital and prospective patients through e-services provided in the website. The objective of any hospital is to improve patient care, and the aforementioned IT solutions are a catalyst to help Al-Rahba Hospital reach this goal.

 

Doctors needed to access medical records instantly and more preferably in a non-manual and paperless manner. Moreover, the HR department wanted to respond to employees more efficiently and maintain their satisfaction, in a way that would not take much of either’s time and allow both parties to focus on the essentials of their jobs. These were some processes that needed to be automated and facilitated through the portal.

 

ITQAN delivered this portal using the MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) 2007 technology. MOSS 2007, a server program part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system, provides a single, integrated location where members of an organization can efficiently collaborate with team members, find resources, search for expert information and manage content and the workflow. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 supports all Intranet, Extranet, and Web applications across an enterprise within one integrated platform, instead of relying on separate fragmented systems. ITQAN also utilized the Web Content Management Features and SharePoint Designer Workflows for simple workflows. InfoPath form services also helped create 30 forms (HR, housekeeping, etc.) within a short period of time.

 

The solution was customized to fit Al-Rahba Hospital’s needs, and hence was integrated to other IT applications, namely the ERP system. Furthermore, it was also integrated to HR services, in order to provide access to personal records, leave requests, and other employee related services. Essentially, there would be HR and other workflows within MOSS, which is further integrated to ERP. The portal also bridges the gap between the HR team and the attendance system, since the HR team need to know when the employees sign in, sign out, their absences, which is all information provided by the attendance system. All these applications were integrated through Nintex, a software application that connects other applications with Microsoft solutions when they don't work on the same platform. Nintex enabled the formation of one seamlessly integrated framework, and emphasizing the phrase of accessing information anytime, anywhere. The finance department and senior management can remotely access information related to the company's performance, finances, and reports generated by Microsoft GP through the portal. Similarly, the HR would have access to employees’ attendance records, and at the same time the employees would also access HR services. 

 

Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains and the attendance system were already installed in Al-Rahba Hospital. We used link server in SQL Server 2005 to fetch data from the Microsoft Dynamics GP and the attendance system database. The data was returned in the form of a data table, and custom web parts were used to render the data table values.

 

Mohammed Abdul-Hamid, ITQAN’s Project Manager, explains that this project witnessed several out of the box implementations. “Many features and functionalities were custom-made for Al-Rahba Hospital, most notably the HR online services, document library, and weather forecast functions.”

 

Creating the Intranet portal made collaboration and access to information much faster and easier, which in essence leads to higher efficiency. Policies and announcements would be published in a central repository, and employees would easily access that to obtain the information they need. It is necessary for all departments and employees in any organization to collaborate and a have fluid flow of communication, instead of working in silos and being segregated from one another since in the end all departments have a unified vision. Furthermore, this solution creates a paperless office environment and allows all documents to be electronically available, and consequently saving space and the time needed to search and retrieve a document.

 

“The outcome of this project met the needs of Al-Rahba Hospital, and was completed successfully in a span of six months. Employees can expect a much easier and simpler means of sourcing information such as policies, HR info, and other requests. The automation of all these processes will allow doctors and nurses to focus on the core purpose on their jobs, which is ultimately patient care. On the long run, Al-Rahba Hospital can experience a significant increase in ROI,” added Abdul-Hamid.

 

The portal provides access to numerous forms and requests needed by employees on a daily basis. Doctors and hospital staff would not exhaust their time by manually searching and filling medical forms' requests, but instead would easily access it and process the forms automatically through the portal. Medical records such as medical forms, doctor/clinic information setup forms, HIS information setup forms, in addition to patient files also became accessible through the portal. E-services related to HR entail the processing of leave requests, duty resumption, request of certificates, and an exit request form. Furthermore, the support services are also available, in case employees need stationary to accomplish their daily tasks, housekeeping staff to provide services like cleaning, food, drink, etc., and IT support where support engineers respond to any technical glitches and problems faced by the hospital staff. Moreover, employees have their own personal webpage in the portal through a functionality titled “My e-Services”, which includes personal information and details, in addition to the status of processed forms and requests, and forms of frequent use. 

 

“ITQAN has been in the market since 1984 and more specifically, an expert in healthcare informatics and solutions for the healthcare sector since 1998. Throughout its course, it served around 20 hospitals in the region and in the process developed their IT setup and helped them achieve their business goals,” pointed out ITQAN’s General Manager, Feras Al-Jabi. “Our immense familiarity with the sector puts us in a position to advise and consult our clients on what business processes to automate and what solutions to deploy, more than anyone else.”

 

On the other hand, the website designed and implemented by ITQAN includes all details and information on Al-Rahba Hospital, from its mission and vision, location, contact information, careers section for job vacancies, announcements, to more specific information such as the medical departments of the hospital, doctors list, and consultation hours. More distinctively, it serves as a contact point for prospective patients via features such as “ask a doctor”, where users can forward any medical queries and questions to a doctor, in addition to the patient guidelines section that outlines basic procedures necessary to be taken by the patient.