GO-kard: an integrated documentation system for cardiology

The development of information systems for clinical departments takes a long time, during which the changing requirements from the medical staff lead to a natural growth of the system. Over time, new technologies come and go, leaving their traces in the system architecture. At some point, the system architect needs to think over the whole concept, design a completely new architecture with the most modern technology and re-implement the system as needed. Looking back at more than 15 years of experience in developing software for a clinical cardiology department (exemplarity GO-Kard), this article discusses the rationale of a radical change in the development of a departmental information system and gives a brief explanation of why the time and effort invested in the a new development framework pays off in the long term