Waiting Room
Solutions (WRS) is an award-winning web-based Electronic Medical Records (EMR)
and Practice Management System for physicians’ offices. Based in Goshen, NY, WRS
serves almost 3,000 users for their needs in charting, medical record filing,
payment tracking, prescription and reporting via the SaaS (Software as a
Service) model, and WRS has sent over 20,000 electronic prescriptions a month
over its secure network.
The Business Challenge
WRS was
looking for a robust database for enterprise-class web-based applications with
the following features:
1. Security
Medical records and health information are highly confidential, and WRS
expected to be fully incompliance with privacy regulations such as the HIPAA
Privacy Rule.
2. Data Integrity
It is important to minimize data corruption and inconsistency for medical
records, because they directly impact critical medical judgment and decisions.
3. Speed/Performance
Doctors work in a fast-paced environment and are not known for being
patient. WRS was looking for a database with high performance, and was aiming to
deliver the speed of an on-premise system with the SaaS model.
4. Low Cost and Scalability
WRS serves customers ranging from small practices to large enterprises. Therefore,
WRS needed a database solution that was affordable to the smallest healthcare
provider, while being able to scale to meet the demands of the largest
providers who have hundreds of facilities.
The MySQL Solution
WRS evaluated
both MySQL and PostgreSQL for its EMR and Practice Management System, and
decided to use MySQL for the following reasons:
1. Ubiquity
MySQL is the world’s most popular open-source database with millions of
installations. It is widely used and is a proven technology.
2. Better Support
In addition to the community users who actively share knowledge and best
practices, it was also important for WRS to know that there is an enterprise
behind the product that they can turn to for help if needed. MySQL was created
by MySQL AB, and subsequently was developed and improved by Sun Microsystems
and now Oracle through acquisitions.It provides WRS with Scalability.
3. Open Source / Open Standard
MySQL is the “M” in the open-source LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Python/Perl)
stack. By leveraging and integrating the existing open-source technology, WRS
was able to develop products and features more quickly, and with better
interoperability.
WRS uses
MySQL replication to achieve scalability, deploying the master-slave topology.
“With MySQL, we can scale as we need. I can install it on many machines and
handle any required volume,” said Brad Hall, Systems Administrator at WRS. “This
gives us far more flexibility with hardware.” Three primary slaves all have to
handle the volume of over 6,000 queries per second throughout the day, and WRS
uses partitioning to increase speed.
With MySQL,
WRS was able to develop a modular EMR and Practice Management solution to support
thousands of medical practices, with the following features: electronic medical
and health records; billing; scheduling; electronic prescriptions; online
patient registration; practice website; messaging; order tracking;
transcription; document management; and disease management. “We required an
open source solution that was well maintained, stable, and actively growing. In
addition, we required a solution that offered access to enterprise support when
needed. MySQL was the right choice for us,” said Hall. “The performance,
scalability, and reliability delivered by MySQL with InnoDB has been excellent.”
Learn more
about Waiting Room Solutions: http://www.waitingroomsolutions.com/
Read more
MySQL customer stories: http://www.mysql.com/customers/
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