Future Works

In OVS system, there could be more services on vaccination. One of the needing functions is the reminding service, which reminds people to get vaccinated at the right time. In addition, more efforts should be done on the security of the system, because the personal private data should have no risk leaking out.

Besides the basic vaccination services, OVS may be extended and adapted for other uses, e.g.

the XML schema used in OVS can be adapted to fit the Health Level 7 and combine with electronic medical records that can be stored in everyone’s National Health Insurance IC card.

Moreover, since NIIS is now running, it may be a great benefit to integrate NIIS with our system.

References

［1］ Department of Health, Executive Yuan, R.O.C. (Taiwan), http://www.doh.gov.tw/

［2］ Centers of Disease Control, R.O.C. (Taiwan), http://www.cdc.gov.tw/.

［3］ 邱瑞科等，「NIIS 全國性預防接種資訊管理中央資料庫系統之建置規劃與效益評

估」，行政院衛生署疾病管制局，2003 年 12 月。

［4］ 邱瑞科等，「建立符合 HIPAA 標準規範之全國預防接種資料庫(倉儲)與管理決策 輔助先導性系統之研究，行政院衛生署疾病管制局，2003。

［5］ Amit P. Sheth, James A. Larson, “Federated Database Systems for Managing

Distributed, Heterogeneous, and Autonomous Databases”, ACM Computing Surveys, Volume 22, Issue 3, September 1990, pages 183-246

［6］ Philip J. Bernhard, Gary Faulkner, and Ophir Frieder, “XML Strategies for Legacy Database Search”, IT Professional, Volume 5, Issue 2, March-April 2003, pages 16-21

［7］ Tanu Malik, Alex Szalay, “SkyQuery: A Web Service Approach to Federate Databases”, CIDR 2003, or http://www.skyquery.net.

［8］ Han-Chieh Wei, Travis Godfrey, “Database Middleware and Web Services for Data Distribution and Integration in Distributed Heterogeneous Database Systems”, IKE 2006, pages 24-29.

［9］ Jin-Ha Kim, Gyu Sang Choi, and Chita R. Das, “An SSL Back-End Forwarding Scheme in Cluster-Based Web Servers”, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PARALLEL AND DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS, Vol. 18, No. 7, July 2007

［10］G. Apostolopoulos, V. Peris, and D. Saha, “Transport Layer Security: How Much Does It Really Cost?” Proc. INFOCOM, 1999.

［11］Marc de Graauw, “Implementing Web Services for Healthcare – Lessons & Pitfalls”, XTech 2005, http://www.idealliance.org/proceedings/xtech05/papers/03-06-02/

［12］Web Services Architecture, http://www.w3.org/TR/ws-arch/

［13］Extensible Markup Language (XML), http://www.w3.org/XML/

［14］Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), http://www.w3.org/TR/soap/

［15］Web Services Description Language (WSDL), http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl

［16］Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI), http://www.uddi.org

［17］Transport Layer Security Working Group, The SSL Protocol Version 3.0, Internet draft, work in progress, Mar. 1996.

Appendix A – Immunization Schedule in Taiwan

Appendix B – Chinese and English Comparative Table of Vaccines

Vaccine Names in Chinese Abbreviation Vaccine Names in English

卡介苗 BCG Bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccine

白喉、破傷風混合疫苗 DT Tetanus and diphtheria toxoid

childrens' dose 白喉、破傷風、非細胞性百日咳混

合疫苗

DTaP Diphtheria and tetanus toxoid with acellular pertussis vaccine

白喉、破傷風、全細胞性百日咳混 合疫苗

DTwP Diphtheria and tetanus toxoid with whole cell pertussis vaccine

流行性腦脊髓膜炎疫苗 Men C_conj Meningococcal C conjugate vaccine

麻疹、腮腺炎、德國麻疹混合疫苗 MMR Measles, mumps and rubella vaccine

麻疹疫苗 Measles Measles vaccine

水痘疫苗 Varicella Varicella vaccine

黃熱病 YF Yellow fever vaccine

Appendix C – Interview with a student about to study aboard in the fall of 2007

Following dialogue is extracted from the notes of interview with Lin Tsai-Yin, who will be studying in University of Minnesota for Ph.D. degree.

Q： Does your school request new students who are entering it for any physical examination or immunization record?

A： Every new student of our school has to do the tuberculin test and hands in an immunization form in which the vaccinated date of TD and MMR are filled. In Taiwan, TD and MMR should have been given to everyone when he was a child.

Q： In general, people don’t remember when he/she took vaccines, then how did you get your records of immunization with certification?

A： People are supposed to have their own immunization records on a yellow card which was given to their parents when born, but my yellow card is gone. You can show the yellow card to a doctor and then he will certificate for the immunization records. But the vaccinations required from my school are not recorded on my yellow card.

Q： How did this happen?

A： My parents once lost my yellow card and then got a new one, but the record on the old card was not put down on the new card again, thus the old record were also lost.

Q： What did you do in this situation?

A： I went to the public health center in my domicile, and the clerk said that they only keep personal records for ten years and maybe the public health bureau has my records. So I went to the public health bureau, this time, the clerks said that the digital immunization records were established after 1990, thus they do not have records of people born before 1990.

Q： So you didn’t find your vaccination record?

A： No. At last I could only go to hospital to take the required vaccines again and get new certificates.

Q： Did you get into any trouble when get vaccination or do the physical examination?

A： It was so inconvenient that I had to go to five places to accomplish all the required examination and vaccination because there wasn’t any hospital can do all the stuffs in one time. Furthermore, there was no information about where I can go, so that I had to ask each hospital or clinic by myself which was time-consuming and time-wasting. It would be much better if there was maybe a web site for people like me to look up related information.

Appendix D – Interview with Staffs at Hsinchu City Eastern District Health Center

Following dialogue is extracted from the notes of interview with nurses of Hsinchu City Eastern District Health Center and a staff of Hsinchu City Health Bureau.

Q： How do you keep the immunization record of people under their jurisdiction?

A： The records are kept in the database located at Hsinchu Health Bureau.

Q： What is the procedure when a child comes to get vaccination?

A： After vaccination, we will login to the NIIS system with browser and find the child’s data by enter in his name or his mother’s name and his birthday, and then we can key in the new record.

Q： Then how do you get the vaccination record if a child gets vaccinations at contracted hospital or clinics?

A： Because the contracted hospitals and clinics do not use the same system as health centers, so they can not directly upload the records to our database. They export the data in a unified format and save in discs then mail them to health centers. In another way, they may send the records by e-mail. However, in both ways, they need to fill a referral clip (or yellow clip) for each referral case, and send the clip to health centers for double checking.

Q： Can people get their immune certification here if their yellow cards are lost?

A： Only people whose domicile in Hsinchu city can get their immune certification here.

Q： How does NIIS cope with the referrals?

A： Every night at twelve O’clock, health bureau’s system automatically sends the records not belong to people under its jurisdiction to central server. The central server will contrast the information with database of Affairs of Household Registration, and transmit the record to the right place

Q： Are there any defects of NIIS which as you opinion should be modified?

A： The information about contracted hospital and clinics is deficient, which leads to the difficulty on managing vaccines. Besides, there is no national search system for vaccination records, so that it is inconvenient to check the cases out of the jurisdiction.

Moreover, the data column for foreign nationals are not enough, therefore it is troublesome when checking children of foreign nationals. In additional, the speed of data transfer is too slow, and