For several years HLN provided software development and maintenance services for the immunization registry used by a major Western state. This software, implemented with Microsoft tools and SQL Server, is still used by six regionalized registries deployed in clusters of neighboring counties. Software was provided for distribution on a password-protected website, and a version of this software is now being modified for deployment in a major mid-Atlantic city.
HLN took a leadership role in a three-vendor project to integrate the childhood immunization and lead poisoning prevention systems in a major Northeastern municipal health department. HLN worked with the executive sponsors to develop the initial conceptualization of the system, and not only developed the Oracle-based master client index but modified products across a wide variety of architectures (including client/server, web, and batch) to interface with this system. HLN now supports the operation of the new system as well as ongoing development of its products.
HLN worked with a top school of dental medicine to develop and pilot a remote dental consultation application. This Java/Oracle-based tele-health system supports asynchronous consultation between dental generalists and specialists across the Internet. Participants are triggered by e-mail messages when they have a pending case to review, or when other participants update case information or render treatment opinions. Case profiles based on specific dental specialties show the participant only the most relevant patient information. This work was funded by the National Library of Medicine.
HLN worked closely with a not-for-profit maternal and child health services agency scattered across a dozen work sites to determine the functional requirements to replace its aging case management software. The new client-server system employed Oracle database technology deployed on a Windows platform with the Internet as its wide area network. HLN analyzed the existing data and performed the conversion of the old databases to the new system and conducted post-conversion quality assurance activities. A year later, HLN was asked to study the system again and convert the entire application to a web-based version with screens matching newly designed paper data collection forms that had been instituted by the organization, with enhanced functionality tracking many new types of information. This version was completely re-written as a Java Servlet application running under Linux with an upgraded Oracle database.
HLN was contracted by a not-for-profit collaborative to develop software for a personal digital assistant (PDA) which interacts with an immunization registry. HLN led a collaborative design team for this project that consisted of technical and program representatives from six state and municipal projects. The result was a product general enough, with clearly-defined interfaces, to be able to accommodate this diverse set of registry products and serves as both an alternative data entry tool as well as a clinical decision support application. In addition to a PalmOS-based PDA component, the software includes a desktop-based "conduit" which interacts with an XML-based web service to facilitate electronic data upload from the PDA to the registry using HL7 messages.