Increasing the availability of the computerized patient record.

The MARS clinical repository, originally developed at the University of Pittsburgh, provides electronic access to the patient record at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The original client interface we developed runs on all standard clinical workstations in the medical center, but is operating-system dependent. Porting and maintaining it on the variety of hardware- and software combinations found on VUMC personal computers would be fairly costly. To broaden the availability of the system to faculty and health care providers in all areas, and to support future access from Vanderbilt-affiliated providers outside the main campus, we are developing a new Web-based client. The new client provides good functionality and performance, and will be a strategic asset in our long-term commitment to making relevant clinical information immediately available to authorized health care providers.