General features of the Euristic products
 
All Euristic products are made using software tools that represent the state of the art in their categories:
  • Client-Server Structure: a standard in modern information systems that must support hundreds or thousands of active customers.
  • Relational Database using SQL standard: means safety of investment because it is the most diffuse technology for middle and large size databases, and because allows "scalability" to larger systems as the requirements grow.
  • Multiplatform Server: the database server can run indifferently on Windows® 2000 Server, Windows® XP o Linux operating systems.
  • TCP/IP network protocol: the best protocol for communications on LAN and WAN.
  • "Transaction oriented" structure: it is the same system used in the banks in order to maintain data integrity even in the event of interruption of the connections.
  • Sensitive data protection: access to sensitive data is controlled by specific authorizations.
  • Identification and control of all the accesses to the system: for every operation it is possible to know who carried out it, when and where.
  • Main systems of medical coding: the system is projected for using several international coding systems (MeSH, ICD, SNOMED, DSM IV etc.) in more languages, without loosing the “unicity” of the concepts: in other words, the same concept (like diabetes or appendectomy), even if present in several coding systems and languages, is seen as a single concept with obvious positive consequences for the logical consistency of the system.
  • Multilingual project: both medical codes and the interface of the program may switch to another language without quitting the program. Medical information can be inserted in a language and consulted or integrated in another.
 
Data security and privacy protection
The SQL database SQL used by Euristic supports the current security standards for facing hardware or software failures and to prevent non-authorized access. Every access is password protected, and the same happens for some critical operations (as an example the recording of the blood group of the patient). The system administrator assigns to every user a series of authorizations that control in detail the data that the user can see and the operations that can perform on them. As an example an "administrative" user can see the demographic and book keeping part of the folder but not the clinical one that, on the contrary, can be seen and modified by doctors and nurses. There are also “sensible areas” which can only be seen by the treating physician. All these authorizations can be given also for limited periods of time.
 
Software "Open Source"

In the study "Free/Libre Open Source Software: Survey and Study Evidence from Germany, Sweden and UK Use of Open Source Software in Firms and Public Institutions", financed under the European Commission‘s IST programme, there is an overview of Open Source databases:

Just as for the server operating system, the low or even zero license fees for the Open
Source database have been a major element in the establishments’ decision in favour
of an Open Source database. 71% considered it to have been at least important. The
influence of the price-to-performance ratio on the database decision was regarded as
almost equally important. Again 71% considered a better price-to-performance-ratio
to have been at least important in their decision. 21% considered it very important,
which is somewhat less than the price tag alone that was considered to have been important
for 28%. Just like in the server operating system decision, this can be interpreted
in a way that getting the software (almost) for free was a very important
decision criterion, but that the users consider proprietary software to deliver a better
price-to-performance ratio at least in some cases.

License fee savings and
better price-toperformance
ratio equally
relevant

This is supported by the relevance attached to higher performance, again an essential
element of databases. In many cases, the Open Source database obviously was simply
the better software, as figure 5–4 shows. 69% of the respondents stated that a higher
performance has been at least important for their last decisions in favour of Open
Source database software.

Higher performance has
been relevant for 68%

Analysts foresee a wide diffusion of Open Source DB in the future:

Open-source databases are in the experimentation phase of the market but will move to widespread acceptance by 2006
Source: “Databases lean on open source” CNET News.com March 09, 2004

Major software companies are using Open Source DB:

One prominent partnership came with business software powerhouse SAP, which signed a deal in 2003 with MySQL. Through the deal, MySQL will develop an open-source database from SAP now called MaxDB and gradually move its features to the MySQL database product it has sold for years.
Source: “Databases lean on open source” CNET News.com March 09, 2004

Euristic uses Firebird™, an Open Source SQL Database. Firebird can run on Linux or Windows operating systems. In this way a strong saving on costs is possible, both for database and for operating system and its licenses.

Of those companies anticipating they would evaluate new database technology within the next two years, over 40 percent were motivated primarily by cost," AMR said. Traditional database companies charge as much as $40,000 per server processor for the software; the top price of an open-source database was $1,500 per processor, for MaxDB.
Source: “Databases lean on open source” CNET News.com March 09, 2004

Where needed for integration with existing databases, Euristic can interface with any standard SQL database, such as Oracle™, Microsoft SQL Server™ etc.