Asante Health System, a not-for-profit healthcare system based in Southern Oregon, provides quality health care to Southern Oregon and Northern California. We offer comprehensive medical care in Jackson and Josephine counties, primarily through the 305-bed Rogue Valley Medical Center in Medford and the 150-bed Three Rivers Community Hospital in Grants Pass. Our information system is anchored by an iSeries 400 Model 820, with 1,000 local and 500 remote PCs. In 2001, we replaced our SNA network with a TCP/IP network.

When we consolidated our medical system by divesting a dozen physicians' clinics, we still had to give 200+ physicians access to the hospital census data, which resides on our iSeries. Staff at their offices use the patient census information to track billing, to accelerate cash flow, and to check approvals. In addition to the physicians' offices, 81 departments and clinics at the two hospitals also needed to access the census.

We had two choices: install 5250 emulation on each physician's PC (at about $100 per PC) or create a Web portal that the physicians and their staff could access from a browser. We opted for the second.

First, we considered designing a dedicated Web site using IBM WebSphere and Lotus Notes. But we decided against it because that would have taken too much time and too much work to create, not to mention maintenance afterwards.

It turns out that we already had the solution in-house, in the form of browser-based remote access solution. We had originally purchased Jadvantage (a Java-based application that provides TN5250 GUI emulation, SCS printing, and SQL data transfer via a browser) to enable the IT department to access the AS/400 from their homes. When the issue of providing remote access for the doctors came up, we performed an extensive evaluation of all options, and Jadvantage made the most sense.

Since not all physicians' offices would be online at the same time, we were able to save money by purchasing only a 50 concurrent-user license for much less than it would have cost us to buy and install 5250 emulation on all those PCs.

Confidentiality of sensitive patient data was an important consideration. Built-in SSL security allowed us to give each authorized user secure access to only the census data of their patients.

Implementing it was easy. We just wrote a simple program for the AS/400 in CL and RPG. Then, it just took a couple of hours to set up the portal.

Our physicians appreciated that they did not have to retrain their staff, who continue to sign on to the AS/400 just as they did in the past. They see an intuitive, user-friendly three-option menu that takes them directly to the database they need. They can also print the reports they need.

Our ROI was almost immediate because we saved a lot of time and effort by not having to develop and maintain a Web site for the physicians and by not having to put emulation on the physicians' PCs.

Sometimes the simple solution truly is the best solution!

Jon McCauley is the Senior Systems Analyst at Asante Health System in Southern Oregon.

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