HIN1: How SAP is reacting

WASHINGTON, USA: Bull-Connect technology (for remote monitoring of pigs) in Israel, or following pink/purple dots on Google maps; with H1NI, technology’s role has also gone contagious and contiguous across the world.

Talking of technology, IT in healthcare may not be a new gene now. And of course not for SAP, that says to have a lot of hospitals using hospital care management and other such technology enablers across the world.

But the DNA gets a new twist in times like these where epidemics like SARS, or the recent HINI scare dominate headlines and hospital lobbies the world over. How pandemic is the application of technology in such times?

Franz Aman, Vice President Product Marketing, SAP BusinessObjects tells that there’s a lot that is happening. Even if not so much in the treatment frontiers, then too, quite significantly and impactfully in the diagnosis and pre-emptive tracking terrains, as his answer explains. Areas like symptom tracking and geographical pattern mapping are the most in focus, it appears.

Swine Flu_summary by county

SAP in ASAP

In India too, the impact of the pandemic has burgeoned and stirred Government and medical fabric of the nation into action.

Technology can play a key role here to predict the next outbreak areas of swine flu and hence accordingly the medical authorities can be well prepared to handle the number of emergencies and act on it accordingly.

SAP has been currently working with governments and medical authorities globally in various areas, it seems.

These include spotting an epidemic brewing long before doctors and nurses would ever be able to; predict next outbreak path (geographical locations) and to analyze symptoms like nausea, fever etc.

In India both public and private partnerships need to resort to technology to effectively address a pandemic.

“We have been working with an organization called EMA (Emergency Medical Associates) for a number of years. Here, the role is to understand all symptoms going on in any emergency case, along with detailed demographics, time-based analysis etc. All this gives a good pattern of symptoms so you can see the evolution of this pattern and act accordingly.” Explains Aman.

He also tells that this analysis helps in arriving at a geographical layer sketch, which for instance can be very handy in mapping how Flu traveled from one part of the globe to another.

This is notable as unlike any other influenza virus that takes about 25 weeks to spread across the planet, H1N1 has reached almost all continents in just about nine weeks. No doubt WHO (World Health Organisation) has termed it a pandemic.

In fact, in a media report in April 2009, it was clearly pointed out that it is vital to track the spread of the virus in order for mitigating the effects and apart from vaccines and antivirals, other crucial role here is donned by communications technologies. This covers monitoring the virus, distributing accurate health information, and quelling outbreaks.

Swine Flu summary all sites

BI’s role, how effective?

Still one is always curious to know how and how much is IT helping in accelerating the process of effective treatment for such epidemics.

As per a news report, WHO has anointed about 21 manufacturers across US, Europe, Japan, Australia, and India (Serum Institute) with the challenge of developing a proactive answer.

In that context, is BI (Business Intelligence), for instance, being applied in the drug discovery areas adequately and smartly?

After all, that can come very handy when it comes to processing viral genomes fast enough as well as in blending genomic information with real geographic information to accelerate in attacking transmission patterns.

Franz answers that SAP has a lot of clients from Pharma sector who are using BI in the drug discovery processes in general, in regular trial functions etc. “A lot of processes here are date-specific and accurate analysis, along with proving results according to the regulatory approval factors is crucial.” 

EMA serves as a case in point here.

EMA is preparing for a potential resurgence in the swine flu virus (H1N1) this fall. By using business intelligence (BI) solutions from SAP AG, EMA says it will continue to pinpoint the movement of swine flu and alert federal organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as 21 different emergency medical departments to patterns of outbreak. In turn, hospitals will be able to staff according to swine flu trends and accommodate up ticks in patient visits.

EMA, which provides emergency services to hospitals and health systems in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania – originally selected data-visualization dashboards provided by Xcelsius software to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) related to its patients.

Jonathan Rothman, Head, data management operations, Emergency Medical Associates (EMA) added in a note that as both the public and private sector grapple with how to best manage H1N1, use of business intelligence software can track, staff and treat the flu serves as a model to emulate.

During the swine flu outbreak in April 2009, the organization saw the potential for tracking influenza infection patterns among its emergency rooms, honing in on information such as the number of visits for the month versus past months; patient-walkout percentages; time of walk-in compared to time of admittance; and how long it took to treat and release or treat and admit a patient.

Physicians, who are administrative directors in EMA’s network of contracted emergency departments, had online access to this information in real time with reporting and analysis software from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio, and used the data to respond quickly to changing public health conditions.

“By drilling down into specific syndromes in our patient reports, we can pinpoint spikes in fever and flu-like symptoms that are swine flu indicators,” Rothman highlights.

“Then we compare it with our large archive of historical information to figure out where we stand. When statistics for a particular symptom exceed standard deviation, we know we’ve got a problem on our hands. From there, we do our due diligence to notify local, state and federal organizations like the CDC about swine flu growth patterns and any geographic spreading of the virus we’re able to forecast, so that they can help inform the public.

SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions enable us to do all of this quickly, and it’s helped us save lives. By having the right amount of medical resources available to patients in the most urgent times, we can provide proper treatment and help mitigate the spreading of the virus.”

In order to determine where medical resources are needed most, EMA uses SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions to collect data from 1.2 million patients annually. With detailed diagnosis information pulled from 1,300 monthly reports, EMA shares that it is able to set specific targets and alarm notifications for when swine flu-related symptom data exceeds standard-deviation thresholds.

Consequently, EMA can take action by alerting local hospitals and federal organizations to their discoveries, so that they can use the information to prepare for outbreaks.

So far, the experience appears to be worth the effort.

With increased access to more reliable information, EMA has been able to measure and analyze physician performance, determine the best way to allocate resources in times of crisis and reduce the number of patients who leave emergency rooms before receiving care – critical issues when diseases like swine flu are spreading. With BI solutions, patients in the EMA network move more quickly into treatment rooms, wait less time to see doctors and spend less time in emergency rooms overall.

This has helped increase the number of patients seen per physician per hour and reduce the per-visit cost for patients.

In short, a BI tool has helped save EMA time by bringing together information from several disparate systems so that end users can make sense of clinical data, operational data, financial data and satisfaction data.

“Since EMA’s end users include physicians, nurses and researchers, the organization needed software that could give people access to information in formats they were accustomed to working with, regardless of their technical skill level,” it shares.

Today, EMA’s 27 dashboards and 30 daily on-demand reports are at end users’ fingertips via an intuitive interface that resembles commonly used spreadsheets.

And So…

BI or R&D drug discovery or vaccine distribution; passing the right information or controlling unwarranted panic; surveillance or a global medical drive for universal Influenza virus, looks like technology will be a good aide in combating the satan of H1N1 influenza virus that has killed over 3900 people and spread over 190 countries since its discovery in Mexico and the U.S. in April.

Preventive or Reactive, the world is watching and waiting for a quick Rx for sure.

So, what’s your opinion on the role of technology played so far?