“Speed was of the essence andTrakCare delivered.” That’s howThanassis Papamichos, Adminis-trative Director of the OlympicPolyclinic, sums up how theInterSystems TrakCare™ softwarehospital information system (HIS)enabled best practices caredelivery at the 2004 OlympicGames in Athens.A proven record of success,advanced functionality, andmulti-language capabilities allplayed a part in the selection ofTrakCare for the Olympic Polyclinicproject. The sprint to success beganwith overcoming a major challenge.Conceptualised as an advanced healthcare facil-ity that would include equipment such as mag-netic resonance imaging machines (MRIs) andCT scanners that would be needed to treatOlympic athletes, thePolyclinic was construct-ed from the ground up ona very tight schedule. Asa result, the volunteertechnology team from IT healthcare specialistInternational Online (IOL), the TrakCare dis-tributor in Greece, first received access to themedical centre just nine days before the doorswere scheduled to open.“This sort of project can take a year to pre-pare for,” says IOL Managing Director ParisMarinakis. “This was the first time informationtechnology was used to manage an Olympicmedical centre,” he says. “We had to install thesystem and import demographic and medicaldata from a broad range of external sources
such as databases, spreadsheets, and test files,for literally thousands of athletes,” he contin-ues. “We had just two days to train the firstteam of volunteers who staffed the clinic onopening day,” Marinakis continues.Fast performance, real-time intelligence,rapid trainingRunning 24x7, TrakCare provided thePolyclinic healthcare staff with rapid access tovital health data and lab test results. The highperformance and responsiveness of TrakCareprovided rapid delivery of key informationabout physiotherapy, blood tests, and othermajor health services. The speed of the systemsupported fast response for patient needs andprovided virtually real-time intelligence to keyOlympic and government personnel, includingGreece’s Minister of Health.Over the course of the Olympics, TrakCaresupported Polyclinic volunteers in handling
Olympic PolyclinicOperates at TopSpeed withTrakCare
“Based on the success of theOlympic Polyclinic, TrakCare
was the right choice.”
� Fast performance
� Real-time intelligence
� Lasting value
INTERSYSTEMS TRAKCARE CASE STUDYOlympic Polyclinic
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well over 8,000 medical encounters for apatient population that included about 15,000athletes and thousands of other games-relatedpersonnel. The emergency departmentremained open on a 24-hour basis and thenumber of daily encounters ranged between200 and 450.And, the speed with which new Polyclinicstaffers – clinical volunteer teams turned overon a 10-day rotation – were able to learn anduse TrakCare also contributed significantly tothe overall success of the implementation.Users – some of whom had never before useda PC – were successfully working with thesystem after just one day of training. In fact,TrakCare’s flexibility, robustness, and ease ofuse were at such a high level that by the timethe Paralympics began, the Polyclinic was ableto run smoothly with about half the staff thathad been needed during the main Olympicsevents.
Ongoing success, lasting valueAfter the close of the Athens Olympics, thePolyclinic was reopened as a state-of-the-artrehab centre for the local community. “We hadthe option of choosing any HIS we wished tosupport the community medical centre,”Papamichos says. “Based on the success of theOlympic Polyclinic, TrakCare was the rightchoice.”“The Olympic Polyclinic was a high-profile,high-pressure scenario where the systemabsolutely could not go down…where it had tooperate at high speed all day and everyday…where we had to have 100 percent success,”Papamichos concludes. With TrakCare’s abilityto drive speed-to-care, that’s exactly whathappened.
