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Dr James Yip
Dr James Yip, a cardiologist by training is equally at ease with the complex congenital heart disease patients he cares for and intricacies of information technology. He has been in love with computers since his youth and still owns a functional Apple II computer. He is director of the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Programme at The Heart Institute @ National University Hospital (NUH) and also a member of the hospital’s Information Technology Management Committee.
As a young trainee in cardiology, Dr Yip was faced with a difficult research problem, which required multiple medical databases “to talk to one another”. The challenge doctors faced with high technology clinical medicine was that each medical equipment vendor would come up with its own proprietary system which would store visual and clinical information using different formats. With every new system introduced, the diversity would become more apparent. To make matters worse, there was difficulty in making old information compatible with the present when certain technologies became obsolete.
With the support of his department, Dr Yip developed the Cardiology Information System (CIS), which houses 14 years of cardiology information at the Heart Institute @ NUH. CIS integrates almost every aspect of patient care in Cardiology. The myriads of investigation and procedures are now housed under one platform and this has improved the daily workflow involved in the complex process of patient care.
In order to achieve his aim, Dr Yip had to change the “traditional” pen and paper workflow, and used persuasion to convince others that IT could actually make life better. To improve user acceptance, he would spend time to customise and automate various workflows from the perspectives of the different users, who includes clerical staff, technicians, nurses and doctors. With this system in place, NUH has been able to reduce inpatient hospitalisation stay in Cardiology by an average of 0.8 days. It has also facilitated the conduct of medical research in The Heart Institute, National Healthcare Group and has helped spawned multiple local and international research papers.
In 2000, the CIS project was awarded the coveted Enterprise Challenge Award, and a grant was given to develop it into a commercial application with potential to expand to other fields of medicine. It also allowed CIS to move into a mobile computing platform, using tablet PCs to bring IT to the patient’s bedside during the ward round, which has the direct effect of improving patient care at source.
In 2004, the CIS won an award for most innovative use of infocomm technology (public sector) at National Infocomm Awards. The CIS platform has also been put in place in various other institutions like Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Alexandra Hospital.
By mid 2005, cardiology information can be shared seamlessly across these hospitals using the National Healthcare Group’s (NHG) Cluster Shared Patient Record System (CPRS) platform. Dr Yip intends to move CIS into other areas of medicine, as a workflow, research and physician tool for multi-centre collaboration. He is also continuing his collaboration with industry players to look into novel solutions for storing huge demands of medical imaging.
The practice of Medicine is a dynamic discipline with constantly changing paradigms. The role of IT is to aid the healthcare team in positively impacting on patient care at source. Dr Yip’s marriage of career and interest shows you can be busy, help your patients and have fun all at the same time.
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