MedTech - Support Issues & Documentation

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PhotogenixNZ

16 posts

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#153975 14-Oct-2014 13:20

Hi all - new poster to the forum, but a regular reader.

I'm an information analyst, working in the primary health sector (which is a recent change from secondary health), and I'm wondering if anyone on here performs the same (or a similar) role?

Almost all of our data is stored in MedTech32 (Interbase) databases, and despite 4 months of hassling MedTech for some (any) help, their support has been almost non-existent. No data dictionaries, no database diagrams, almost no documentation...of any kind, no response to emails, etc. The only thing they have done is try and sell us another product.

I'm looking at a solution which will allow me to get access to all of this data, and I thought I would reach out in the vain hope that someone might have something useful they could share with me.

Many thanks,
Phil

darylblake

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#1161742 24-Oct-2014 20:48

Hi Phil,

Are you trying to remove the data from Medtech permanently or do you just want to access it?

You could try and restore a copy of the database into an open source interbase software package like firebird.

networkn

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#1161764 24-Oct-2014 21:53

Hi There!

Whilst I can understand your frustration at poor support, I am surprised you think that a company that is used to store patient records, would provide you the level of detail you are asking for. There are 10 reasons I could come up with on the top of my head
to out-rightly refuse, and to be honest I believe if you thought about it, you could come up with even more.

Medtech is very widely used product, with a huge market share, the risks to their business of allowing you database schemas is huge. I know at least one client who tried to figure it out for themselves (with other proprietry software), and found themselves locked out of the product, support revoked, and legal action threatened. It's in the EULA
and that client no longer can ever get access to the product. People take this stuff very seriously.

They are under NO obligation to give it to you, I'd stop asking.

PhotogenixNZ

16 posts

Geek

#1163348 28-Oct-2014 10:05

networkn: Hi There!

Whilst I can understand your frustration at poor support, I am surprised you think that a company that is used to store patient records, would provide you the level of detail you are asking for. There are 10 reasons I could come up with on the top of my head
to out-rightly refuse, and to be honest I believe if you thought about it, you could come up with even more.

Medtech is very widely used product, with a huge market share, the risks to their business of allowing you database schemas is huge. I know at least one client who tried to figure it out for themselves (with other proprietry software), and found themselves locked out of the product, support revoked, and legal action threatened. It's in the EULA
and that client no longer can ever get access to the product. People take this stuff very seriously.

They are under NO obligation to give it to you, I'd stop asking.

Thanks for the response, but I completely disagree. I've worked in health information for around 12 years, and the availability of information is of the utmost importance when trying to run a health service. The reporting from within health systems is usually pretty basic run-of-the-mill stuff, which doesn't provide the level of detail or complexity which is required for in-depth population health analysis (or, for that matter, to produce the standard reporting required by the Ministry of Health). MedTech is worse still in this space, providing a very basic report writer and a SQL window. They are both very limited, and neither are very useful without any documentation anyway.

In my many dealings with major patient management systems (and these include massive multinational vendors), they all give detailed documentation on the portion of their database schema where patient level information is available. We are not interested in the functionality of the system itself, the code behind it, or the myriad of system tables which exist - only the tables in which OUR data is stored.

This information is vital in order to plan our health service, respond to needs within our community on a proactive basis, report volumes and details to the MOH, and a myriad of other things. What use is a health information system that doesn't adequately provide, and (passive aggressively) refuses to assist in providing, health information?

PhotogenixNZ

16 posts

Geek

#1163349 28-Oct-2014 10:08

darylblake: Hi Phil,

Are you trying to remove the data from Medtech permanently or do you just want to access it?

You could try and restore a copy of the database into an open source interbase software package like firebird.

Thanks Daryl,

I'm simply needing to access the data - but this needs to be on an ad hoc, frequent basis, so backup and restores would be a little cumbersome (not to mention difficult, without any documentation to assist in understanding the DB).

P

networkn

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#1163351 28-Oct-2014 10:13

PhotogenixNZ:
networkn: Hi There!

Whilst I can understand your frustration at poor support, I am surprised you think that a company that is used to store patient records, would provide you the level of detail you are asking for. There are 10 reasons I could come up with on the top of my head
to out-rightly refuse, and to be honest I believe if you thought about it, you could come up with even more.

Medtech is very widely used product, with a huge market share, the risks to their business of allowing you database schemas is huge. I know at least one client who tried to figure it out for themselves (with other proprietry software), and found themselves locked out of the product, support revoked, and legal action threatened. It's in the EULA
and that client no longer can ever get access to the product. People take this stuff very seriously.

They are under NO obligation to give it to you, I'd stop asking.

Thanks for the response, but I completely disagree. I've worked in health information for around 12 years, and the availability of information is of the utmost importance when trying to run a health service. The reporting from within health systems is usually pretty basic run-of-the-mill stuff, which doesn't provide the level of detail or complexity which is required for in-depth population health analysis (or, for that matter, to produce the standard reporting required by the Ministry of Health). MedTech is worse still in this space, providing a very basic report writer and a SQL window. They are both very limited, and neither are very useful without any documentation anyway.

In my many dealings with major patient management systems (and these include massive multinational vendors), they all give detailed documentation on the portion of their database schema where patient level information is available. We are not interested in the functionality of the system itself, the code behind it, or the myriad of system tables which exist - only the tables in which OUR data is stored.

This information is vital in order to plan our health service, respond to needs within our community on a proactive basis, report volumes and details to the MOH, and a myriad of other things. What use is a health information system that doesn't adequately provide, and (passive aggressively) refuses to assist in providing, health information?

Well it's fine you disagree, but with respect, you are wrong. It's a private company who likely made no promises of being prepared to let you have access to the data via any method other than their prescribed interfaces. You don't have a legal leg to stand on, and this leaves you with two choices;

1) Lobby them for change and be patient, talk to people further up the chain of command

2) Let them know you are switching products because they don't provide the level of access to the data you require, and vote with your feet.

What you aren't taking into account is the potential security risk of them allowing access to the data and their name being associated by a potential leak of said data and secondly, that they don't know what qualifications you have to access said data via any method other than the others they prescribe.

Also I believe that actually the data doesn't belong to YOU as such, the patient records belong to the patient

jnimmo

1097 posts

Uber Geek

#1163357 28-Oct-2014 10:18

I do a similar role in private health sector. The software we use (Profile) is SQL based, working on developing SQL reporting services reports at the moment.
Is there an option to shift to MSSQL instead of Interbase? Alternatively I wonder whether you could get an ODBC connection with something like Jasper Reports (free), or Tableau

jnimmo

1097 posts

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#1163375 28-Oct-2014 10:22

networkn:

Also I believe that actually the data doesn't belong to YOU as such, the patient records belong to the patient

I'm guessing most of the data in question is business related data rather than patient records. i.e. number of X procedures, invoice info, appointment info, DNA rates, referral statistics, etc.
Patient records are largely unstructured so not much use for querying programmatically.

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surfisup1000

5288 posts

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#1163412 28-Oct-2014 11:12

PhotogenixNZ: Hi all - new poster to the forum, but a regular reader.

I'm an information analyst, working in the primary health sector (which is a recent change from secondary health), and I'm wondering if anyone on here performs the same (or a similar) role?

Almost all of our data is stored in MedTech32 (Interbase) databases, and despite 4 months of hassling MedTech for some (any) help, their support has been almost non-existent. No data dictionaries, no database diagrams, almost no documentation...of any kind, no response to emails, etc. The only thing they have done is try and sell us another product.

I'm looking at a solution which will allow me to get access to all of this data, and I thought I would reach out in the vain hope that someone might have something useful they could share with me.

Many thanks,
Phil

I suppose I'm on the opposite from you, being on the vendor side (then switching between vendor / client to help them out).

Unless in the contract, the vendor has no responsibility to really provide you with any technical data or design documents. They probably have a lot of customers with big budgets and they just want the money.

It comes down to cash right? You could pay the vendor for these things that you need but there is no budget right?

Did your organisation foresee these issues before buying the software?

ubergeeknz

3344 posts

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Vocus

#1163416 28-Oct-2014 11:21

Are you paying support on the product? I would assume that in exchange for an appropriate amount of money, MedTech or their VAR will gladly give you the reports or exports you require. Have you tried that approach, instead of asking them for proprietary information on their product?

PhotogenixNZ

16 posts

Geek

#1163418 28-Oct-2014 11:23

networkn:
PhotogenixNZ:
networkn: Hi There!

Whilst I can understand your frustration at poor support, I am surprised you think that a company that is used to store patient records, would provide you the level of detail you are asking for. There are 10 reasons I could come up with on the top of my head
to out-rightly refuse, and to be honest I believe if you thought about it, you could come up with even more.

Medtech is very widely used product, with a huge market share, the risks to their business of allowing you database schemas is huge. I know at least one client who tried to figure it out for themselves (with other proprietry software), and found themselves locked out of the product, support revoked, and legal action threatened. It's in the EULA
and that client no longer can ever get access to the product. People take this stuff very seriously.

They are under NO obligation to give it to you, I'd stop asking.

Thanks for the response, but I completely disagree. I've worked in health information for around 12 years, and the availability of information is of the utmost importance when trying to run a health service. The reporting from within health systems is usually pretty basic run-of-the-mill stuff, which doesn't provide the level of detail or complexity which is required for in-depth population health analysis (or, for that matter, to produce the standard reporting required by the Ministry of Health). MedTech is worse still in this space, providing a very basic report writer and a SQL window. They are both very limited, and neither are very useful without any documentation anyway.

In my many dealings with major patient management systems (and these include massive multinational vendors), they all give detailed documentation on the portion of their database schema where patient level information is available. We are not interested in the functionality of the system itself, the code behind it, or the myriad of system tables which exist - only the tables in which OUR data is stored.

This information is vital in order to plan our health service, respond to needs within our community on a proactive basis, report volumes and details to the MOH, and a myriad of other things. What use is a health information system that doesn't adequately provide, and (passive aggressively) refuses to assist in providing, health information?

Well it's fine you disagree, but with respect, you are wrong. It's a private company who likely made no promises of being prepared to let you have access to the data via any method other than their prescribed interfaces. You don't have a legal leg to stand on, and this leaves you with two choices;

1) Lobby them for change and be patient, talk to people further up the chain of command

2) Let them know you are switching products because they don't provide the level of access to the data you require, and vote with your feet.

What you aren't taking into account is the potential security risk of them allowing access to the data and their name being associated by a potential leak of said data and secondly, that they don't know what qualifications you have to access said data via any method other than the others they prescribe.

Also I believe that actually the data doesn't belong to YOU as such, the patient records belong to the patient

You think that I'm wrong - there's a difference.

Of course they intend access to the data, otherwise they wouldn't provide any tools to do so (which they do), and we wouldn't be capable of reporting contractually mandatory data to the MOH and our DHB. Instead we pay a 3rd party to do much of it, an independent company who are able to access every detail of our patients' data, directly from the back end. If they can, why not us?

As you say, I could extract the data using the built-in interface, in theory, and in a worst case scenario I would have to do so - I could perform long-winded data dumps and manual updates to my data warehouse. Putting aside my request for ODBC access for a moment, even some basic documentation on the use of their tool would be a first step, but we have nothing....no docs, no support.

PhotogenixNZ

16 posts

Geek

#1163420 28-Oct-2014 11:29

jnimmo: I do a similar role in private health sector. The software we use (Profile) is SQL based, working on developing SQL reporting services reports at the moment.
Is there an option to shift to MSSQL instead of Interbase? Alternatively I wonder whether you could get an ODBC connection with something like Jasper Reports (free), or Tableau

Their new software is SQL based, but we haven't upgraded to that yet (for a number of reasons).
I'm sure I could probably figure out a way to connect to the existing DB, but I would rather do it with the guidance of the vendor to ensure I do it properly and efficiently (it would also save considerable time and effort if I knew what I was looking at without having to decipher everything myself). Doesn't seem unreasonable.....

PhotogenixNZ

16 posts

Geek

#1163422 28-Oct-2014 11:32

jnimmo:
networkn:

Also I believe that actually the data doesn't belong to YOU as such, the patient records belong to the patient

I'm guessing most of the data in question is business related data rather than patient records. i.e. number of X procedures, invoice info, appointment info, DNA rates, referral statistics, etc.
Patient records are largely unstructured so not much use for querying programmatically.

Absolutely - though there is a subset of data regarding patient conditions which is also important - such as management of diabetes, CVD risk assessments, that kind of thing. There is some structure to patient records, as many conditions are coded against the patient - however this data doesn't often follow "nice" naming standards (another project that would be worth pursuing, once I could see the data within).

PhotogenixNZ

16 posts

Geek

#1163426 28-Oct-2014 11:39

surfisup1000:
PhotogenixNZ: Hi all - new poster to the forum, but a regular reader.

I'm an information analyst, working in the primary health sector (which is a recent change from secondary health), and I'm wondering if anyone on here performs the same (or a similar) role?

Almost all of our data is stored in MedTech32 (Interbase) databases, and despite 4 months of hassling MedTech for some (any) help, their support has been almost non-existent. No data dictionaries, no database diagrams, almost no documentation...of any kind, no response to emails, etc. The only thing they have done is try and sell us another product.

I'm looking at a solution which will allow me to get access to all of this data, and I thought I would reach out in the vain hope that someone might have something useful they could share with me.

Many thanks,
Phil

I suppose I'm on the opposite from you, being on the vendor side (then switching between vendor / client to help them out).

Unless in the contract, the vendor has no responsibility to really provide you with any technical data or design documents. They probably have a lot of customers with big budgets and they just want the money.

It comes down to cash right? You could pay the vendor for these things that you need but there is no budget right?

Did your organisation foresee these issues before buying the software?

That is a good point, however the level of response from the vendor is such that I haven't had the opportunity to even ask that question. We are paying 3rd parties (handsomely) to do the work for us. It might work out cheaper! However the level of data I need is such that I'm not looking for a set of 10 specific reports, or anything like that. I'm looking for a master dataset which I can query.

When I've discussed this with my peers around the country (and bear in mind this software is used extensively within NZ), every one of them has described their support as being non-existent, so I'm not alone.

I was hoping someone out there (and I'm sure there are plenty of people) would have some intimate knowledge of the DB and save me some time :)

networkn

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#1163442 28-Oct-2014 11:58

Contact Think IT, apparently they have a number of certified MedTech people, but again, I'd expect it incredibly unlikely you would get access to the master dataset and even if you can, if MT find out about it, your contract and ability to use the license could be revoked, so I would recommend persisting with official channels.

PhotogenixNZ

16 posts

Geek

#1163469 28-Oct-2014 12:20

networkn: Contact Think IT, apparently they have a number of certified MedTech people, but again, I'd expect it incredibly unlikely you would get access to the master dataset and even if you can, if MT find out about it, your contract and ability to use the license could be revoked, so I would recommend persisting with official channels.

Thanks - appreciate all the feedback everyone, positive and negative :)
I've got more avenues to explore....