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Project
: Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System
Customer : Department of Agriculture, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Industry : Public Sector
Application : Client-Server
Database : MS SQL Server 2000
Tools : Visual Interdev, MS Access 2000, Visual Basic
Platform : MS Windows 2000 Server and Professional Server
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Introduction
The Pennsylvania
Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System (PADLS) contracts laboratory services
from two university institutions, the University of Pennsylvania's New
Bolton Center (NBC) & Penn State University's Animal Diagnostic Lab
(ADL) and includes a third lab, the Dept. of Agriculture's PA Veterinary
Lab (PVL). The Computer systems in place were old and outdated and were
not able to meet the users needs for timely and accurate data. The Dept.
of Agriculture wanted to have a system that improved the efficiencies
of the stakeholders of the system and gave them access to accurate and
timely information about the Cases, Test Results and Client Billing.
Application
Brief
There are
5 broad aspects to the technical solution:
- Data
Entry Screens & Reports
This is the User Interface component of the new application. The users
of the system use the Entry Screens to enter the various data elements
into the system including Case, Client, Test Results, Interpretations,
etc. The users also generate various reports including Case related
reports, Invoices and Administrative reports.
- Database
In the old application, data were being stored in a flat-file FileMaker
Pro system. The new system stores the data in a Microsoft SQL Server
Database. This has enabled the user to access data easily for updates
and queries.
- Database
Replication
Each of the three labs has a local copy of the PADLS database that is
synced up with a Central Database at least once every 24 hours. Replication
policies define how the database synchronization will happen.
- Interface
to Bio-Medical equipment
The 3 labs use several bio-medical equipments for testing. In many cases,
the Test Reporters manually enter the data into the PADLS. Some of these
bio-medical equipments have PC Interfaces, which makes it possible to
create an interface between the equipment and PADLS application. In
some cases, there is no PC interface with the equipment. This was identified
as an optional requirement for the users.
- Data
Migration
The data in the existing system were migrated to the relational database
in the new system.
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