Intranet System with Single User Authentication Process

St. Luke’s University Health Network is a healthcare provider with a regional network of hospitals, physicians, and related organizations primarily in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The network consists of more than 80 owned physician practice sites and more than 125 employed primary care/specialist physician sites. St. Luke’s handles more than 55,000 annual admissions and close to 200,000 emergency room visits each year.

Challenges

In order to leverage technology to advance medical research, St. Luke’s wanted to implement a web application to support the Clinical Drug Research Process. The application would assist with medication management, allowing users to digitally check out and check in medications to the workflow.

Solutions

St. Luke’s University Health Network sought the assistance of AllianceTek, a leading IT solutions and software development company with experience in developing custom applications for medical organizations. AllianceTek studied the requirements and designed a solution that would best fit St. Luke’s. AllianceTek implemented Windows Authentication so users could use their Windows login credentials on their local intranet network. By using Windows Authentication, users could gain validation into the system along with their necessary details (first name, last name, email, phone, role, etc.) to be stored and retrieved from the application’s data storage.

Implementation

The application is built on .NET MVC architecture with SQL Server and uses Windows Authentication so users can log into the system along with their necessary details. During implementation, difficulty with database concurrency arose. The issue occurred when two or more users tried to edit the same record at the same time. AllianceTek overcame this conflict by implementing the functionality ‘RowVersion’. ‘RowVersion’ is used to maintain the integrity of the database when multiple users are updating the row at the same time by creating optimistic concurrency control. In order to promote an efficient workflow, an email system was created at every step of the check-in/check-out process to alert the next user in line about the update. When the status changes, the next user immediately receives an update via email before logging into the system. The application also implements an administration section where users can manage profiles, as well as a role system of privileges that helps utilize the right resources to be accessible to relevant users.

Result

As a result of working with AllianceTek to develop the intranet application, St. Luke’s University Health Network was able to more efficiently conduct medical research. The email flow at the completion of each check-in/check-out process helps system users get updates quickly with better synchronization without having accessing the system, thereby filling communication gaps. Communication is easier, information is more secure, and the healthcare professionals using the system are better equipped to serve their patients and apply the right treatments.