osTechnology specialize in clinical decision support systems which optimize the treatment and hospital management of resources to improve quality patient care. Our quality products are the result of intensive research and development with experienced hospital staff ranging from emergency and trauma hospital directors to emergency specialists and nurses. We aim to share our knowledge through research and development and commitment to open source initiatives.

Currently our research development is undertaken through close cooperation with Medical Systems Development Research Group which has representatives from 3 of the largest emergency hospitals in Sydney. We focus on research and development in the of area of clinical decision support with the aim of optimizing the patient progress from initial triage to discharge and focusing on treatment guidelines and preventative care implementations. osTechnology’s clinical products provide the health industry with quality, evidence based systems which have been clinically trialled and tested.

Our team have released the full version of the current clinical decision support system ACAFE. It is free to use and download under open source license!

By doing this, clinicians who have worked with osTechnology know we understand the difficulties and unique impracticalities confronted in their daily work flow, and our products solve these headaches.

Our Team and Advisers

Mr David Dinh, Founder and Operations Manager, Bachelor Applied Finance, Bachelor of Law (University Technology Sydney)

View David Dinh’s profile

Dr Matthew Chu, MBBS (Hons)., FACEM. Director of Emergency Medicine, Canterbury Hospital. Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM).

Dr Michael Dinh, MBBS FACEM. Staff Specialist, Emergency Department CoDirector Trauma Services RPAH, Senior Clinical Lecturer, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney.

Medical Systems Development Group- Please visit the link: MSDRG

Our decision support system works on improving the treatment and management of patients in the emergency and trauma environment. Recently, we developed an emergency based clinical decision support system which is accessible within 3 major emergency training hospitals in Sydney, Australia. Our clinical decision support systems are based on solid studies, peer reviews and RnD. Some of our past research achievements are outlined below:

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION

Reckmann S, Chu M, Dinh D, Dinh M.“The information technology capabilities of Australian emergency departments: A nationwide survey”, 2006 CAEP/ACMU Scientific Abstracts. Presented at ICEM 2006, June 3–7, 2006, Halifax.

Details: First national survey of IT capabilities of Australian Emergency departments. This included software as well as hardware capabilities and opinions that ED directors held over the value of IT in future health care delivery.

Taylor B, Kwok R, Dinh M, D.Dinh, M.Chu, E. Tang. “Electronic interface for emergency department management of asthma: A randomized control trial of clinician performance”, Emergency Medicine Australasia. Volume 20 Issue 1 Page 38-44, February 2008.

Details: A randomised control trial of clinician performance and consultant to roll-out and implementation of an intelligent patient management for chronic disease- asthma.

Kwok R, Dinh D, Taylor B, Chu M, Dinh M. “An electronic decision support system for asthma management in emergency departments: a sustainable alternative for evidence-based guideline implementation”, Annals of Emergency Medicine, Volume 51, Issue 4, April 2008, 12th International Conference on Emergency Medicine (ICEM 2008) Scientific Abstract Program, San Francisco.

Details: A clinical trial of the decision support system developed by David Dinh in use in three leading Sydney emergency tertiary teaching hospitals.

CONFERENCES & PRESENTATIONS

Chan D, Dinh D, Chen J. “A Multilingual Decision Support Prototype for the Medical Domain”, 2006 Presented at HLT-NAACL, June 8-12, New York.

Dinh M, Taylor B, Chu M, Dinh D.“ The Asthma Clinical Assessment Form And Electronic Decision Support (ACAFE) Project Collaborative Innovation And Development”, Presentation 435, MEDINFO 2007, 12th World Congress on Health (Medical) Informatics – Building Sustainable Health Systems, Aug 15-23, Australia.

osTechnology have built a solid reputation in research, developing the best decision support system and being involved in all aspects of clinical decision support development. This comes through over 3 years of solid intensive clinical system studies, design and evaluations. Now in 2008 osTechnology plan on commercializing their clinical technology solutions and release a product line.

Project
Provision of secure data warehousing and database services.

Description
Antibiotic study: The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that influenced follow up compliance following discharge from the emergency department. This served to highlight the role and importance of effective discharge documentation and communication between emergency departments and primary care providers. This study can be found at Emergency Medicine Australasia 2005; 17: 450-456

Client comment: “ osTechnology proved their success understanding clinical requirements for documentation and ethical considerations. Their knowledge of clinical infrastructure services and underlying capabilities ensured the research project was completed in a timely and efficient manner”

Project
Online based survey, infrastructure, ethics and security compliance, database storage.

Description
National Emergency Department IT survey. This study required the survey of every Emergency Department in Australia. There was considerable emphasis on security and confidentiality. This involved undertaking threat modelling analysis to map out the data flow and storage capabilities. We also performed security penetration testing on the database and web platform, submitting multiple entries of garbled data and running live tests to simulate various data entry scenarios.The result of the study was a robust survey which met strict health confidentiality information compliance and captured valuable survey data across Australia.

Client comment: “osTechnology’s ability to meet stringent ethical committee requirements of user confidentiality and security ensured our success presenting the study in Canada 2006”

Project
Customisation to HCN hospital based content management system.

Description
Rapid implementation of content management system. This allowed the large majority of leading hospitals access to their own individual personalized content for staff and users to access. The project enabled HCN to leverage off its core search technology platform and provide integrated solutions for customers across Australia. Our dedicated quality assurance meant flawless implementation and a system which HCN could extend to various other sectors.

Client comment: “osTechnology was able to demonstrate an understanding of my business needs and goals. You will appreciate how the team at osTechnology are easy to deal with, responsive, able to meet tight deadlines and most importantly, they are technically competent.

Project
Web Content Management System and data conversion

Description
Primary Health Care Limited provides a comprehensive range of services and facilities to general practitioners, specialists and other health care providers who conduct their own practices and businesses at its medical centres, licensed day surgeries, specialist and dental clinics. We were involved with the provision of a content management system and customization of the hospital search platform.

Clinical decision support provides clinicians, staff, patients or other individuals with knowledge and person-specific information, intelligently filtered or presented at appropriate times, to enhance health and health care.

It encompasses a variety of tools and interventions such as computerized alerts and reminders, clinical guidelines, order sets, patient data reports and dashboards, documentation templates, diagnostic support, and clinical workflow tools. The core features we look to employ include:

Deploying decision support tools with guidelines:
Severity grading system and alerts, integrated decision support scales, medication database through integration with existing prescription ordering systems, evidence based research and evaluation and collaborative study approach to confirm results of real clinicians who have used the technology.

Clinical user collaboration
Multi-user access, real time data updating, cross platform independent, standardisation of data access and storage for future health system integration.

Workflow automation
Provides automated documentation, provides easy to read and useful hospital and clinician specific reports, updated real-time patient summaries.
Interoperable technology platforms XML, standardised data structures, web services.

Detailed Clinical Reporting
Real time reporting capabilities, hospital statistical measures, clinical key performance indicators, audit and compliance reports.

Clinical Decision Support has been effective in improving outcomes at health care institutions and practice sites by making needed medical knowledge readily available to knowledge users.

Information extracted from “A Roadmap for National Action on Clinical Decision Support, June 13 2006”

Achieving desirable levels of patient safety, care quality, patient centeredness, and cost-effectiveness requires that the health system optimize its performance through consistent, systematic, and comprehensive application of available health-related knowledge – that is, through appropriate use of Clinical Decision Support which is an area of osTechnology research and expertise.

See ACAFE, an emergency clinical decision support product