Introduction to My Blog

Welcome to my blog, with the improbable title "MSSQL HealthIT". This blog deals with the use of Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL) and the ancillary tools and services applied to health care organizations, particularly hospitals.

Licensing restrictions apply, but these tools are available on the same DVD as the database server software and include:

1. SQL Server (the database engine)
2. SSIS - SQL Server Integration Services, which moves and cleans information SSRS - SQL
3. Server Reporting Services - a web based reporting platform. ReportBuilder - an adjunct to SSRS, which permits users to design their reports.
4. SSAS - SQL Server Analysis Services - a service that permits users to discover patterns and relationships on their data by interactively slicing and dicing on the data.

There are other capabilities, notably Data Mining. As this blog progresses, I'll be outlining how these can be effectively applied.

This blog has 4 identified target groups:

Technically proficient practitioners of MS SQL that are new to the Health vertical.

1. Hospital Technical staff that are currently evaluating Electronic Medical Record systems (EMRs), who also wish to assess the use of MS SQL.
2. Hospitals that have installed one of the most prominent EMR's, Epic by Epic Systems of Madison, Wisconsin. There is one module in particular, Clarity, which provides trending information to management.
3. Hospitals and other health care institution which may be using other products (Oracle, Teradata, DB2) but wish to use the MSSQL BI stack for further analytical support.
   

Why would I attempt this ambitious endeavor? I have in my career (outlined in the About Me portion of the Blog Profile) long lamented that the techniques of Business Intelligence so prevalent in other verticals (manufacturing, supply chain, financial) have not percolated to health care - an endeavor that currently consumes 17% of the GNP of United States.

Stimulus programs are forthcoming which will provide financial carrots to install computerized health care software. Penalties (in the form of reduced Federal reimbursements) are also anticipated should a health care organization fail to implement a system in the next few years. This blog will in future installments show concrete use of the SQL products in this vertical, particularly the use of Business Intelligence techniques.

I'll be showing how the features new to SQL 2008 can be applied to an Epic Clarity environment, including the following:

1. Resource Governor
2. Row compression
3. Permissions tailored for report and software developers
4. New indexing solutions - filtered indexes
   

One of the immediate other topics will be the use of Reporting Services to report on Clarity and other data sources. Two dozen topics are planned, including the scaling of a Reporting Services (RS) server, the pitfalls of multi-valued parameter reports and remedies, and techniques needed to monitor reports and improve the quality of data.

So stick around as this gets into gear.