24 facilities (regional blood donation and haemorrhage centres) used several different systems for daily operations. They did not share information with each other and had many non-standardised processes and dictionaries.

Each centre had the task of managing information about the people who had donated blood and been tested in the laboratories. They also had to keep records of blood samples and materials collected. The law requires centre staff to create and store this information. However, as each centre has its own system, the data is often lost, duplicated or no longer verifiable. Another obstacle to proper functioning was the fact that the information on donors or patients was not filled in properly, was often falsified and not structured in a standardised way.

This led to a lack of centralised reporting and disorganisation in the hospitals, making it impossible to check stocks and order blood for patients in need in critical situations. The client needed a solution that would integrate all the systems of the 24 facilities into a central IT unit that would monitor the flow of information and make the data available to all centres.

The processing of data sets worth several million dollars (more than 6 million data sets) was required with great responsibility in the conversion of personal and medical data.

The information stored in the facilities had been an integral part of the databases for more than 20 years. The first task was to collect data from various systems and databases, which, as it turned out, had no fixed structure. Some of the databases were also encrypted, which made the whole process difficult and lengthy.

It was necessary to network with the data provider and develop a process for extracting and decrypting the data. As the current systems were not working properly, the data of blood donors or patients could not be validated. Names, telephone numbers, addresses or PESEL numbers could not be verified.

The biggest challenge was to sort out the data relevant to the Polish health service. Incorrect blood markers and phenotypes or migration errors could have disastrous consequences for patients waiting for help.

The solution was a lot of consultation, data analysis and raising awareness of the client and facilities:

• System development through which data can be retrieved from all regions
• Successful execution of test migrations for most of the data provided.
• Implementation of scripts to transform the data into the e-Blood model as part of the expected migrations.

An application was created to transform information in the form of XML files into an intermediate database structure, which made it possible to carry out the migration process to the e-Blood structure on the collections.
Data migration as part of the e-Blood project involves the transfer of data from source systems (different structures and different database engines such as DB2, Gupta, PostgreSQL) and the subsequent normalisation of the data with analytical support for input into the common new model of the emerging e-Blood application.

• Centralisation of all medical data on blood donations, which enabled a smooth flow of information between facilities across the country.
• Compilation of information and the ability to correctly issue authorisations for volunteer blood donors.
• Reduced data migration time from several hours to 1.5 hours.
• Added technical and technological capabilities provided to the client by increasing knowledge in database engine optimisation.
• Accelerated work time for Regional Blood Donor and Haematology Centre staff.