Web client and ODBC access to legacy database information: a low cost approach.

A new method has been developed for the Department of Orthopaedics of Vanderbilt University Medical Center to access departmental clinical data. Previously this data was stored only in the medical center's mainframe DB2 database, it is now additionally stored in a departmental SQL database. Access to this data is available via any ODBC compliant front-end or a web client. With a small budget and no full time staff, we were able to give our department on-line access to many years worth of patient data that was previously inaccessible.