Note: c-treeACE became FairCom DB in November 2020.
SchuyLab LIS product benefits from the FairCom DB fast, accurate and reliable feature set
When dealing with patient information and test results, access to fast, reliable data is not a luxury, it is a necessity. That is why it is essential that healthcare facilities have systems in place that ensure the collection of and the high availability of accurate data.Schuyler House is a global provider of a laboratory information system (LIS) that allows healthcare technicians to perform routine laboratory tasks at a higher rate of efficiency and accuracy. This LIS product, SchuyLab, includes an integration of software that provides a variety of options for results delivery, management, overview and billing process procedures. SchuyLab is used by healthcare organizations of all sizes, ranging from physician offices and associated laboratories to large-scale reference labs and to hospitals, as well as veterinary medicine facilities.One of the reasons SchuyLab works so well is the use of FairCom DB: a multimodel database solution by the FairCom Corporation. FairCom DB provides SchuyLab with the ability to give its customers fast, reliable data storage and transfer operations with a wide range of systems: clinical analyzers, electronic medical record systems (EMR), health information systems (HIS), billing systems, and office systems. The FairCom DBACE technology that powers SchuyLab is the same technology trusted by highly sophisticated organizations: Visa, NASA, Thomson Reuters and UPS; to name a few.
Why FairCom DB? There are multiple reasons
The strength of the technology, the business flexibility, and maybe more importantly, the excellent technical support made the decision to go with FairCom DB the obvious one. From a technical perspective, the key database enhancements Schuyler House wanted included reduced data corruption, on-line backups, and encryption for ever stringent regulatory compliance such as HIPAA and EU Directive 95/46/EC.From the business angle, Schuyler House needed a partner flexible enough to provide the right model for every licensing scenario. One important goal for the next generation of SchuyLab was to provide better licensing models for its customers. Also important is the Schuyler House mission: Improving healthcare around the globe, which entails providing no-cost solutions to healthcare providers in developing countries. A consequence of this is that no single licensing model works.FairCom DB provided SchuyLab with the capabilities to meet the requirements it had on its wish list, but another FairCom attribute also stood out. Schuyler House was impressed with the quality of the technical support delivered by FairCom during their migration process. Engineers consistently provided timely and thorough responses to all inquiries and offered suggestions for best practices to improve the overall application.
FairCom works with Schuyler House to maximize performance
Schuyler House and FairCom examined the features needed to bring advanced functionality to SchuyLab. The primary concern was first and foremost data integrity.With Schuyler House providing services throughout the world – in both first world and developing regions -- protection against power interruptions is vital. The database server has to provide complete, fast recovery in case of system failure. By applying the ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) transaction protection offered by FairCom DB to all database updates, database integrity is assured even in the worst of disasters. FairCom DB has also significantly reduced the amount of time, money and resources needed for index rebuilds.Protecting data at rest is also a pressing concern with today’s healthcare security requirements. This frequently involves choices of who ultimately has the master “key” to the data, which can make deployment and future management extremely challenging. FairCom DB effectively addresses this concern by providing SchuyLab with easy-to- deploy data protection that shields the underlying lab data from prying eyes.The FairCom DB hot backup provides another level of data protection to SchuyLab and its customers by creating clean data backup for safekeeping without the need to stop workflows or the database server. And, with transaction logs available, complete roll-forward and roll-back capabilities can be employed to bring a restored database to a precise point in time.
Replacing a database with FairCom DB was easy
It is no secret that replacing a database can be a tedious, resource-consuming task fraught with technical and business risks. That was not the case for Schuyler House when it switched to FairCom DB. William Shipley, the founder and CEO of Schuyler House, said, “I was able to replace my existing database API (application program interface) calls with FairCom DB in about a weekend. It was an easy one-to-one replacement.”The reason for the easy migration is simple: The FairCom DB record-oriented API is broad and complete, encompassing nearly any data storage and retrieval requirement. Using a few very basic FairCom DB API calls, an application can be up and running in very short order. The process of replacing ISAM database API calls from other database engines with those from FairCom DB is nearly effortless. Because the API replacement was straightforward for Schuyler House, additional attention could be placed on providing advanced transaction control over the data.
The end result: SchuyLab became an even more efficient, powerful LIS because of FairCom DB
Schuyler House selected FairCom because of the enhancements offered by FairCom DB, the ease of migration, the business flexibility, excellent technical support. Below are highlights of the results of the migration:
- Powerful client-server database engine providing complete transaction-controlled data protection
- Vast reduction in support costs for both Schuyler House and its customers
- Elimination of time-consuming index rebuilds for data access interruptions
- Easy-to-deploy encryption guarding HIPAA-protected patient data
- Seamless online data backups without stopping the server
- Flexible licensing and deployment models creating a competitive advantage in this highly advanced market
- Advancement of the Schuyler House Mission extending access to quality healthcare in developing countries and around the globe
About SchuyLab, The One Stop Solution for LaboratoriesSchuyLab provides smooth, efficient workflows for laboratories, from the moment orders are placed until doctors have results in hand. SchuyLab does this by combining:
- Integrating includes accessioning, worksheets, QC, billing and reporting. It also includes automatic faxing, billing and Internet access. This makes movement of specimens, data, and payments fast and efficient—a “one stop” solution for laboratories. A networked system of 50+ PCs can turn out results on 4,000 accessions a day or about 40,000 tests per day.
- Interfacing comes into play through available analyzers within the lab. SchuyLab’s analyzer interfaces are individually written for each instrument; they don’t require “black box” or secondary PCs to connect. As for interfacing with other EMR or HIS systems, SchuyLab speaks HL7 fluently, and interfaces with over a hundred different EMR/HIS systems on the market. Orders are received, and results are electronically sent back to doctors via secured connections.
About FairComFairCom is a pioneer in the database software industry dating back to 1979. That tradition of innovation continues today with FairCom DB by FairCom: A one-of-its-kind multimodel database solution that can operate on a wide-range of platforms. FairCom DB features unique No+SQL technology that facilitates high-performance NoSQL and industry-standard SQL access within the same application, over the same single instance of your data. Due to its speed and reliability, more than 40 percent of the Fortune 100 have trusted the FairCom family of database solutions for their database needs.
