Contribute increases efficiency for forensic medicine with low-code custom solution in Oracle APEX<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
With a custom solution in Oracle APEX, UZA provides an efficient and secure alternative to the local use of Access, Excel, and Word in the Forensic Medicine department. Contribute, a company from the Cronos Group, managed the complete development process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Universitair Ziekenhuis Antwerpen (UZA) is a university hospital renowned for clinical patient care, academic training, and scientific research. The hospital offers 38 specialized medical services, with over 600,000 patient visits annually. UZA employs around 2,800 people, including 400 doctors and 1,400 nurses. The ICT department consists of 90 full-time staff members, with 18 responsible for functional applications. This team works with a broad portfolio of administrative and medical applications, both developed in-house and purchased.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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“In recent years, we\u2019ve seen a growing need for structured, standardized, and automated data processing,” says Guy Lodewijks, ICT manager for functional applications at UZA. “There\u2019s an overall increased demand for information. As a result, we\u2019re seeing the administrative workload for caregivers grow.” One of the challenges for the ICT department is to provide the right applications to support caregivers effectively, so they can handle administration more efficiently and focus on their core tasks. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Quick response<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
It is in this context that hospital staff turned to using Access, Excel, or Word to store information in a simple way. \u201cThis is done with the best intentions,\u201d says Guy Lodewijks, \u201ceven if it\u2019s just to store certain data that doesn\u2019t fit into the electronic patient record.\u201d However, when these initiatives happen without the oversight of the ICT department, potential risks arise, such as security concerns or questions about new functionalities or additional performance needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The Forensic Medicine department had been using Access, Excel, and Word for case administration over the years: requests from the public prosecutor, information about crime scene visits (so-called \u201cafstapping\u201d), autopsy data, and so on. \u201cThe Forensic Medicine department came to us because the Access application needed an update,\u201d explains Guy Lodewijks. \u201cThe performance was declining. To ensure the continuity of functionality and efficient data management, a new solution was needed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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For the ICT department, this posed a significant challenge. \u201cIt\u2019s an application with both an administrative and medical aspect, focusing on a process that the department follows: a series of steps that the user must complete.” A ready-made solution for forensic medicine wasn\u2019t readily available. \u201cWe explored whether it would make sense to translate the applications to .NET, but that didn\u2019t seem to be the case.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Low-code<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The advantage of all this study work is<\/strong> that the Forensic Medicine department and the ICT team now have a clear idea of what they want: a single platform that brings together the functionality of the old Access database, Excel, and Word files\u2014with reasonable effort and budget. \u201cSince we already had Oracle Database in-house, and the license for Oracle APEX was included, that platform came into focus,\u201d says Guy Lodewijks. For functional analysis and operational project management, the hospital enlisted the services of Contribute, an Oracle specialist with extensive experience in application development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Oracle APEX is a low-code environment bundled with Oracle Database. The low-code principle allows developers to focus entirely on the business problem, without the overhead typically associated with traditional development. This ensures a short lead time and the best of both worlds: a customized solution for a specific need, without the high costs usually associated with traditional software development.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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More efficient administration, better reporting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Contribute\u2019s APEX software factory developed the application for the Forensic Medicine department based on an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) environment. The production environment was initially hosted in UZA\u2019s data center, with the goal of eventually moving the application to OCI. The application\u2014known within the hospital as Obelix, covers all the functions that Forensic Medicine previously handled using Access, Excel, and Word. \u201cIt provides the department with an environment that offers the necessary standardization and control,\u201d says Guy Lodewijks. \u201cUsers now have to follow the various steps in the process when managing a case, which automatically improves the quality of the reports, as everyone is registering and processing the collected data in a structured and standardized way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Thanks to the smooth collaboration with Contribute and the transition to Oracle APEX, not only is the functional continuity assured, but everything related to the ICT side of the story is as well. \u201cThe performance of the application is excellent,\u201d says Guy Lodewijks. \u201cEverything works very well, and we are currently working on optimizing the functionality.\u201d In addition to the forensic doctors and other clinical staff, several administrative staff rely on Obelix, totaling around twelve users. “They use the application in the hospital, but also from home via Citrix. We\u2019re not just happy that we\u2019ve provided the department with a tool that supports its core tasks efficiently, but also that it can work securely. Contribute has, of course, ensured that the security and backup of Obelix are fully up-to-date.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
With a custom solution in Oracle APEX, Universitair Ziekenhuis Antwerpen (UZA) offers an efficient and secure alternative to the local use of Access, Excel, and Word within the Forensic Medicine department. Contribute, a company from the Cronos Group, guided the entire development process. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":902,"template":"","cases_categories":[36,39],"class_list":["post-1418","cases","type-cases","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cases_categories-managed-services-en","cases_categories-software-factory-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/contribute.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cases\/1418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/contribute.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cases"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/contribute.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cases"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contribute.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/contribute.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cases_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contribute.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cases_categories?post=1418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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