Enterprise-Wide Data Warehouse and Decision Support System for Business Intelligence, the Galaxy Series comprises data acquisition, transformation, presentation and administration components all rolled into one total warehousing and decision support solution. The Galaxy Series is a robust software solution, first implemented in 1996 for which TSG was elected as one of the Top 9 NT Innovators by Windows NT Magazine in 1997.
KEY STRENGTHS
- Data patterns and associations to better predict future trends and behaviors
- Querying, Mining, Analyzing, and Converting healthcare data intelligently
- Extraction and application of critical data to increase healthcare value
Sharepoint Services –
Reporting Services –
- SQL Server Reporting Services is a comprehensive, server-based solution that enables the creation, management, and delivery of both traditional, paper-oriented reports and interactive, Web-based reports. An integrated part of the Microsoft Business Intelligence framework, Reporting Services combines the data management capabilities of SQL Server and Microsoft Windows Server with familiar and powerful Microsoft Office System applications to deliver real-time information to support daily operations and drive decisions.
FEATURES
- Client/Server Microsoft Windows technology
- Warehouse resides on a Microsoft SQL Server database that can support terabytes of data
- Batch or real-time data acquisition
- Supports any ODBC, OLE-DB client
- Free choice of hardware vendor
- Small imprint on MEDITECH/HIS
- Fast download time
BENEFITS
- Removes the constraints of a proprietary database
- Centralizes all legacy and disparate data sources
- Advanced analytical tools can be deployed
- Serves as the basis for custom applications, interfaces and web applications
- Removes analysis from your OLTP system, allowing you to gain substantial response/turnaround times from both your OLTP system and the analysis process
- Serves as the basis for an archival system, allowing you to purge your OLTP system more frequently, thereby avoiding expensive hardware upgrades
Analysis Services
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services delivers online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining functionality for business intelligence applications. Analysis Services supports OLAP by letting you design, create, and manage multidimensional structures that contain data aggregated from other data sources, such as relational databases.
Data Marts
Data marts are multidimensional data schemas designed to address the analytical information needs of particular business processes. This de-normalized data view promotes high performance analysis. Utilizing conformed dimensions and a dependent warehouse, data marts can be integrated, enabling enterprise analysis through a definition.
GOLAP/TSG Standard Cubes
Galaxy On-Line Analytical Processing (GOLAP) is a data-mining/analysis tool that introduces powerful flexibility to the presentation of information. TSG recognizes that for data to become information, it must be intuitively presented. GOLAP allows for multidimensional data analysis, which means users can get a personal perspective on their data. Furthermore, GOLAP presents a worksheet style view of your query that can be manipulated to discover anomalies and monitor trends.
eMillennium
eMillennium is a point-and-click analytical application created with executives and upper management in mind. This tool enables all users of a hospital to immediately retrieve information from many critical sources for better decision-making. Millennium to a whole new level with extensive reports that allow for tailored analysis.
Unified Dimensional Model
UDM blurs the line between relational, OLAP databases and various other heterogeneous data sources. It is essentially a bridge between the user and their data.
FEATURES
- Synchronizes Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access login accounts, groups and members
- Provides a comprehensive list of all Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access accounts—including those belonging to Galaxy Security
- Uses drag-and-drop technology for adding members to groups
- Provides an intuitive interface for granting and revoking selected permissions to one or multiple SQL views or tables
- Pre-defined reports are available
BENEFITS
- Centralizes security management of Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access
- Easier and more intuitive method of granting and revoking permission
- Concise descriptions can be associated with members
- Assists users who do not have strong Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Access skills
- Enforces consistent user login accounts
- Security reports by database, table, user and user group
Galaxy Relationship
TSG realizes that to obtain meaningful results from your warehouse, analysts need to not only be proficient with an analytical tool, but must also have a thorough understanding of Meta Data. Therefore, the Galaxy Relationship applet was introduced into the Galaxy series to assist data analysts and developers in understanding the Meta Data that they are analyzing.
Galaxy Administration
Utilizing Galaxy Administration, users can stay informed as to how current their data are and DBAs can effectively monitor downloads. Documentation can be centrally located.
Data Integrity
TSG realizes that “having no data is better than having incorrect data” and offers a tool-set and methodology to reconcile the data between MEDITECH and the Galaxy Warehouse. Any discrepancies can be analyzed via Analysis Services Data Integrity cubes published via a page on your Business Intelligence Portal.
FEATURES
- Table and field explorer
- Wildcard search on Galaxy tables and fields
- Wildcard search on MEDITECH DPMs, segments and fields
- Cross-application relationship finder
- Record viewer
- Table and index information
- Displays physical file names of tables
- Displays number of records per table
- MEDITECH technical field level documentation
- Global technical documentation
BENEFITS
- Reduces the learning curve of analysts who are unfamiliar with the MEDITECH data structures
- Ambiguous relationships are uncovered
- Intuitive browsing through the data fields aids understanding
- Facilitates the transition of experienced NPR report writers into the relational environment
- Reduces development time
- Centralizes metadata documentation
- Magic programmers familiar with object code gain a better understanding of the logical level
Customer Quotes
Database Administrator (DBA)
255-Bed Independent, Not-For-Profit, Public Service Organization
“We looked at 3, MEDITECH, MSM and Shams. I say we looked at MSM's but when we contacted them; they actually told us they didn't have a product (this was in Fall 2000).
It was a 100% vote to go with Shams from about 20 individuals involved in the selection process. Based on questions asked and answers received, it was obvious our presenter was well informed on the MEDITECH side as well as knowing Microsoft SQL (database engine that all 3 vendors are using) and relating technologies.
The implementation time was 7 months for Financials and 3 more months for Clinical from Contract Signing. We have signed an addendum and are already looking at another for when we purchase PCS and add-ons for LSS (Physician Billing Database). We are doing some very exciting things with our warehouse/repository data including:
- Forward needs analysis projections
- Medications with DX studies
- Nosocomial Infections Studies
- Building OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing) Cubes that users access via Excel Pivot Tables, (our users love this!!!) Also playing with accessing OLAP cubes via Microsoft Sharepoint Portal (exciting stuff!)
- Just starting to look at connecting our new OR system in Oracle on a Unix Platform to our warehouse. (Will probably do this as a linked server or just use the data via ODBC connection in SQL Data Transformation Services)
Shams is a forward-looking company that maintains the technology staff to support Microsoft SQL and we have never regretted our choice for one moment. I'll go ahead and tell you what you will find out shortly if you look at Shams that they are more expensive. But this is definitely a case of you get what you pay for.
Case in point . . . October 17th of this year, our Data Warehouse server crashed. We lost 3 hard drives from a RAID 5 array due to a controller fan problem. There is no way to recover from this type of loss so our only choice was to restore from backup. All we did was recover the hardware, put in our backup tape set and call Shams, they took over from there. One full backup and 6 incremental to restore, a daunting task for anyone!”
Applications Analyst
110-Bed Hospital Serving an Eight-County Area
“We are C/S 5.2, SR7 and have had Galaxy, the Shams data warehouse, for about a year. We are very happy with the Shams company. We have their Transcriptor for transcription and their Galactica for scanning. They have been very willing to work with us for problems and improvements to all their products and are always very timely in responding.
There are many advantages to Galaxy over NPR reports. We use Access to write reports. To me, it is much easier to understand the tables in Galaxy. Also, the report wizard usually is sufficient for the reports I write. A report that may take 4 hours to compile in NPR may take a couple of minutes in Galaxy.
Another advantage is that ALL tables from MEDITECH are downloaded to Galaxy. When we were comparing the Shams product to MEDITECH's data repository, we found that MEDITECH provided the tables that they thought we might want. Shams provide all the tables.”
"We have had The Sham's Group's Data Repository for many years now. We love it!"
System Administrator
Two Hospital-Based Not-For-Profit Health System
“Kudos to you guys. Our CIO stopped by to let me know that he's heard from many of the attendees of Galaxy demo and that everyone is VERY impressed with the warehouse. I actually was able to supply a director from Behavioral Health some information of LOS and Average LOS by service and by payer, then by physician. He had been to several people before this who couldn't get the information for him. He was very happy and can't wait to have Millennium installed. So, I just wanted to share with you how pleased everyone here is with your stuff.”
"I just love you guys. You are all so responsive. Any time I have a problem, I just pick up the phone and call….and you'll are always there."
IS Director
Small, Private Not-For-Profit Pediatric Hospital
"It's an excellent platform for not only independent support decision-making but also creating applications, small or large. It can perform tasks as simple as mail merge and Microsoft Word, to advanced Visual Basic software applications."
Director of Strategic Data Resource
257-Bed Hospital in the Puget Sound Area
“Galaxy has removed the barrier that was preventing us from leveraging the incredible wealth of information that MEDITECH has.”
“FYI, your product received a compliment from our CFO. He e-mailed an example of a report he ran using GOLAP to a number of people, with this message attached: “‘I’m kind of proud of the attached report I developed in GOLAP in about 5 minutes! What a terrific piece of software.’”
VP Corporate Services
260-Bed Hospital - Subsidiary of a Not-For-Profit Health System
“We're using Galaxy as a Data Warehouse and a Repository and have found it to be a very helpful tool for financial and clinical analysis.”
Database Administrator (DBA)
452-Bed Non-Profit Medical Center
“I have been the database administrator for our TSG (The Shams Group) data warehouse for almost 5 years. I have to say that it has been a great experience to work with their product. They were great teachers the first year when I was trying to learn and understand, they are open when we have new ideas or suggest changes to existing products, and their product is very stable. I can't tell you about the MEDITECH data repository other than that when we have had hospitals come here on site visits that use it, they are in awe at how stable our warehouse is and how short a time it takes to have it up-to-date after a MEDITECH version upgrade. With the TSG data warehouse, it is usually up-to-date in 1-2 days (at the most) after a MEDITECH version upgrade (and they do that with no downtime to the end users.) Please feel free to call/email me if you have more specific questions. If you are considering a data warehouse, I think it would benefit you and your organization to consider The Shams Group.”
“It is not often enough that I take the time to thank you for the work you do. I was reminded this week during the SQL 7.0 upgrade how lucky I am to have the opportunity to work with The Shams Group. Everyone involved in the upgrade handled themselves very professionally. Anytime there was a problem you were quick to respond with a solution and provide me with an explanation. I was very pleased with the entire upgrade process. It was obvious you had gone to great lengths to make sure it went as smoothly as possible. You guys are great! I know there were several others involved, please let them know how much I appreciate their hard work during the upgrade.”
Director of IS
452-Bed Non-Profit Medical Center
"I want to echo my thanks and tell you how much it means to me to be able to turn over an upgrade such as you guys did, knowing that whatever the problems encountered our partners would be there to help. Yes there were problems - we all knew there would be, but their customer support team handled them very well. Thanks again - keep up the good work."
Success Stories
The Shams Group (TSG) is a growing knowledge management company, offering superior consulting, CPR solutions, software integration, and innovative best practices, plus Internet-based tools that increase productivity and profitability for healthcare organizations. TSG provides the most technologically advanced, state-of-the-art solutions to current and future problems faced by hospitals, for both Magic and Client/Server applications. At TSG, our track record demonstrates the results of our efforts with successful organizations that have enjoyed measurable benefits in both productivity and quality of care.
Read our Customer Profiles to get a more in-depth look at how our customers are truly benefiting from our various products.
452-Bed Non-Profit Medical Center
Expansive Not-For-Profit Health Care Corporation |