Database Integration Question

[Dan]

Hello all.

I am currently working on a project for several Hospitals. The
application is written in Java, and the database is either Oracle or
MySql, depending on the client. For a while now, we have been asked
to integrate our appliations database with the databases of the other
Hospital applicatoins, such as payroll, scheduling and so on. I have
been looking around online to see how others have done this, and I
have come up with two standards, the HL7 standard and DICOM standard.

Now, lets look at this on a slightly higher level than this. Even
conforming to these standards, we would still need to establish some
sort of communication between ourselves and whichever application we
wish to integrate our database with, correct? How does database
integration work in the real world? Standards are great, and I am
sure that they help a great deal when it comes down to it, but the
fact is that there are hundreds of applications we need to integrate
with across various clients and it seems like it would take a lifetime
to do one at a time. So, is there an easier way? Are there any good
vendors that do this? I have found some vendors, but picking one can
be detremental to my career if they are no good. How have others
tackled this problem?

Thanks in advance
Dan

[Roedy Green]

Re: Database Integration Question

On 29 Sep 2003 08:30:18 -0700, zhanngol@yahoo. com (Dan) wrote or
quoted :

>I
>have come up with two standards, the HL7 standard and DICOM standard.

There are two different problems : exchanging information with other
groups and maintaining your database in a way that makes that easy.

You exchange data in standard formats that have nothing to do with
SQL.

You are going to need to write import/exports for the HL7 and DICOM
standards. To make life easy you might want to do that before/while
you design your SQL database to ensure that is not difficult.

--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming.
See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary.

[Daniel Morgan]

Re: Database Integration Question

Roedy Green wrote:

>On 29 Sep 2003 08:30:18 -0700, zhanngol@yahoo. com (Dan) wrote or
>quoted :
>
>

>>I
>>have come up with two standards, the HL7 standard and DICOM standard.
>>
>>

>
>There are two different problems : exchanging information with other
>groups and maintaining your database in a way that makes that easy.
>
>You exchange data in standard formats that have nothing to do with
>SQL.
>
>You are going to need to write import/exports for the HL7 and DICOM
>standards. To make life easy you might want to do that before/while
>you design your SQL database to ensure that is not difficult.
>
>--
>Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
>Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming.
>See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary.
>
>

I agree. Also check with medbiquitous.or g. They are a standards group
for the medical world and are
involved in drafting a number of XML standards for information exchange.

I'm not that familiar iwth DICOM but I can tell you that the more you
know about HL7 the more you
may wish you had taken larger doses of drugs when you were in school.
Hopefully HL7 will soon be
replaced by XML or something containing something a bit closer to sanity.

--
Daniel Morgan

http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp

http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp

damorgan@x.wash ington.edu
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)

[Wojtek]

Re: Database Integration Question

On 29 Sep 2003 08:30:18 -0700, zhanngol@yahoo. com (Dan) wrote:

>Hello all.
>
>I am currently working on a project for several Hospitals. The
>application is written in Java, and the database is either Oracle or
>MySql, depending on the client. For a while now, we have been asked
>to integrate our appliations database with the databases of the other
>Hospital applicatoins, such as payroll, scheduling and so on. I have
>been looking around online to see how others have done this, and I
>have come up with two standards, the HL7 standard and DICOM standard.

There are some Java class generators which will take the HL7 subset
you want and create a series of classes which will parse the HL7
message and return it in a tree form. You walk the tree to get the
information in the HL7 message.

Try a Google search for "java HL7 generator class"

------------------------
Wojtek Bok
Solution Developer