Implementation of a cardiology information system in the Academic Medical Center Amsterdam

We are implementing the cardiology information system (CIS) "Apollo" in the Department of Cardiology. We have purchased the Apollo32 system from LUMEDX; formerly Seattle Systems Inc. which have build-in features for extensive local customization. Stand-alone systems build on information requirements of the cardiologist and built on widely divergent platforms will be more and more adopted by integration in the Apollo system. The first parts of the Apollo system demographics (18000 patients) and catheterization module (10300 events) are operational since the summer 2000 followed by the Stress ECG (3400 events) and Pediatric Echo (5770 events) module [200]. The module CCU (3650 events) and Echo (8300 events total of the Resting, Stress and Transesophageal echo) module are since 1 April 2002 operational and will be the unofficial point of no return. We start to implement the Apollo module: EHH (Chest Pain Clinic) on 1 Oct 2003 followed next year by the module CHF, electrophysiology, pacemaker, Holter etc. A number of 36,000 letters/reports are stored on the Apollo servers. Doctors, assistants, nurses, residents and the administration personal (about 125 in total) were using now daily Apollo for different use. They worked on standard workstations (about 50 in total) run with Windows2000NL and MS-Office97 suite connected on the internal AMC network. We plan to increase the number of working places to 60. Our two servers (Access97 and SQL6.5) are located at the computer room of our central automation department. The uptime of the Apollo system is in principle 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our experience with the availability is very satisfying. The waiting time for retrieval of an existing letter/report is sometimes too long now. We plan to upgrade (hard and software) the running servers and workstation. Integration of the Apollo signed letters/reports, a part of our "AMC Electronisch Patienten Dossier so-called Poliplus", will be published in the EPD at the end of this year. The implementation of interfaces, standards such as HL7 and DICOM, with installed and new coming cardiological equipment delivered by different suppliers are in practice not so easy.