An Information Integration System to Continuing of Care Case study Nongsung Hospital, Mukdahan THAILAND

This research study presents information on the integration system from several data sources of health units in Thailand in order to support the continuity of patient care using the web services and metadata concepts. The purpose of this system is to provide information to support doctors and nurses in evaluating the long-term healthcare plans for patients by using patient records from other health promotion hospitals. However, there are many different health information systems (HIS) presently being used in Thailand, and each system may have a separate structure. This has led to difficulty in integrating and exchanging information between them. To solve this problem, we proposed architecture to integrate information by using metadata and web services. We implemented the proposed architecture for the continuity of patient care in the Nongsung District Hospital along with three district health promotion hospitals in the Nongsung District, which had been using different HIS systems. The accuracy of the system and users' degree of satisfaction were evaluated. The results showed that the system could be correctly integrated and the assessments for satisfaction from the users had been very good.