Simulator of patient traffic in a cardiology department for testing the integration of an ECG management system with an existing clinical database

In the context of HYGEIAnet, the regional health network of Crete, a clinical cardiology database called CARDIS (CARDiology Information system) was installed in several hospitals. To fill the need for a computerized ECG management system, a collaboration was organized between ICS-FORTH and Mortara Instrument Inc., aimed at integrating the Mortara E-Scribe/NT software with CARDIS. In order to test the combined system before installation, a computer program was developed to simulate patient traffic in a cardiology department. The program was run for three simulated 'months', and a total of around 2,000 ECG recordings were archived for access from CARDIS. During the testing period, a number of software problems were identified and corrected. The same approach could be used for testing other database components, with a view to precluding the loss of real clinical data as a result of software malfunction.