subject: Proactive Business Transaction Management - Top 5 Questions Hospital Administrators Should Ask [print this page] Proactive Business Transaction Management - Top 5 Questions Hospital Administrators Should Ask
The role IT applications and software plays in the day-to-day running of a hospital cannot be over estimated. Nor can the hospital administrator's role be overlooked as he or she continually seeks to improve and increase the efficiency of the IT system.
Why is proactive business transaction monitoring something worth considering, when there are already so many applications processing transactions? Isn't this enough? These are just some of the questions hospital administrators may be asking. Let's look at a number of key questions that hospital and IT administrators need to ask in order to stay ahead of the curve continually.
Why is business transaction management so important?
Business transaction management (BTM) is a component of application performance management (APM) software that addresses the inherent limitations application support groups have within IT for diagnosing problems within the transaction-intensive applications which communicate across multiple tiers and structures.
The typical IT environment is very complex. There may be service oriented architecture (SOA), cloud computing and environments combining multiple application types. When a transaction moves through these diverse applications the potential for losing visibility into where, when, what and how is a serious issue.
When a BTM application is put into place, keeping track of hospital transactions is no longer an issue. They are visible no matter where they are in the IT stack. Both the actual performance of the software being used, and the availability of the software are evaluated.
Why is this important? The transmission of crucial patient data to pharmacies, doctors, insurance providers and others is too important to risk having compromised. When information is lost or delayed or, even worse, incorrect, the legal risks as well as potential financial impacts are reason enough to put business transaction monitoring in place.
It's essential to have a transaction monitoring strategy that correlates every piece of data moving through the IT infrastructure. Without business transaction monitoring in place, glitches, error queues, broken applications and other "normal" accidents can swell into crippling events the affect functioning of the entire hospital.
Should patient data be visible continually?
Yes. Here's why. Lost patient data can lead to serious errors in treatment. Also, lost information can result in the loss of revenue.
It is very important that all business transactions can be tracked across all of the IT tiers inside a huge organization like a hospital. For obvious reasons, patient data must be made visible and available whenever it is needed. In order to have this data present, a hospital administrator should ensure that there is end-to-end visibility across all tiers.
Business transaction monitoring through a BTM solution offers complete visibility into all transactions and critical systems in real time. This is something that is not present natively in most IT systems and applications.
Having applications running and available twenty-four hours a day is vital, which requires a smooth running solution to handle large volumes of data in a timely manner. Real-time visibility also gives the IT team access to the end user's experience
AutoPilot is a BTM solution that lets hospitals meet the challenges of maintaining control of their IT environments across all tiers.
How can IT problems be minimized?
Obviously problems and bottlenecks in the system need to be minimized, as serious problems could not only close down the system, but the entire hospital if patient data cannot be recovered. A powerful BTM solution is needed to monitor transactions and help reduce outages, performance slow-downs and business disruptions. Real time monitoring radically reduces the chance of serious errors occurring.
Which aspects of the system should be given priority?
It should be clear that IT management processes should be prioritized based on the business needs of the hospital. In this case, it is clear that the extensive data in the system must be available 24/7. Specifically, data such as patient details, consultation and operation results, doctor records, radiology reports and medication must be present and given priority.
The data of highest priority needs to be available and moved to the right people at the right time, in an efficient and effective manner. In order for this to happen, there needs to be some way to monitor the data. This means having the right BTM solution installed.
Is there a BTM solution designed for hospitals?
AutoPilot has already been applied successfully in several hospital and insurance settings to enable hospital IT administrators to monitor the movement of vital data. AutoPilot's ability to monitor HIPAA regulatory and compliance issues, manage the performance and availability of your entire WebSphere MQ environment, and provide Predictive Alerts and pre-emptive automated actions, via its embedded Complex Event Processing (CEP) engine is verifiable.
Business Transaction Management (BTM) is vital for IT administrators and staff who must know how well their applications are performing, and how well they are supporting the goals of the hospital. AutoPilot is a solution that fits this need.
