• Core activity : Development and implementation of IT solutions for Health Care

• Specialization : Programming, installing and maintaining medical software for government and private hospitals and large Clinics.

• Lunar Technologies was established in October 2007, but several of the company staff had previously worked together to implemented patient record systems for the World Health Organization in Colombo.

• The first company activity was to assist and to ensure the sustainability of a Red Cross project to implement electronic patient records in tsunami-affected areas of the Eastern Province. They used the Caché database from the US company Intersystems, from which they received an international humanitarian award.

• After the success of that project, Lunar was engaged by the Governmental IT agency (the ICTA) to convert their software to the FOSS method of licensing (Free and Open Software System) and to assist the ICTA to set up a country-wide standardisation in Governmental hospitals.

Lunar Technologies was set up to produce and implement health care software to improve the quality of patient care by better clinical documentation. A unique feature of the company is the strong support it gives those users who are starting to use computers for the first time. All of the company team adopt the principles of total quality assurance and adhere to the principles embodied in the 6 Sigma process improvement tools. In software coding they use the principles of Agile Programming as described in the book “Clean Code” and all software is internally audited. Lunar uses Framework Programming to produce robust code that is easy to maintain.

The Chairman of Lunar Technologies was a senior consultant to the World Bank and in addition to project consultancy gave training to health ministry staff on Quality Management in a number of Central Asian and African countries. He has spent his entire professional career in development and installation of medical software.

The Senior Software Engineer has several University degrees in IT and has achieved a Masters Degree with honours in Computer Science. He was a senior lecturer at a prominent Sri Lankan University when he left to join the Lunar Team. He designs, supervises and heads all software activities within the company.

We have several qualified financial officers who use computerized accounting procedures. Our financial status is reviewed regularly by the Hatton National Bank and is audited by a firm of chartered company secretaries in Colombo (Joseph and Company).

Lunar Technologies has been the recipient of several top-level international and local management and software quality awards:

• In 2016, we won the “Commonwealth Medical Association Award” for Clinical informatics conducted by an international medical committee.

• The open-source software HHIMS developed by our staff was honored with the eSwabhimani award in e-Health for 2011.

• We won an international award in Orlando Florida 2009 judged by the Editors of the Computer World Magazine, for our pioneering efforts in bringing the benefits of a computerized database to health care in a developing country.

• We were awarded a “National Best Quality Software Award 2008” conducted by the Sri Lanka Section of the British Computer Society for excellence in company management and software development.

• We have received awards from the British Commonwealth and the European Union.

Specific quality assurance is managed in the following way:

• Chairman (Consultant / Project Manager) – oversees all activities; frequent consultation with hospital management and senior clinical staff,

• Senior Software Architect – checks and documents all the software produced and receives feedback from other company staff and users,

• System Manager – arranges for deployment and documentation of trainers and checks on user assessment reports,

• Senior Software Engineers – visit hospitals regularly to ensure all functions operational,

• External review (consultants) – software security has been checked by an external organization and is regularly tested by a security monitoring program.

• We have a web-based Cloud service where users can see and practice using the software before it is installed or to try out new features before they are released. 

The  technical members of the Lunar team are all highly qualified in programming, developing, documenting and implementing, including (but not confined to) PHP, SQL, Java, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Apache and they are also competent in Linux, Microsoft Windows, MySQL, PostgreSQL and CodeIgniter.

The software that we have produced since the company was founded includes:

• MDS (Multi-Disease Surveillance Open Source) New – Java, PHP, MySQL, Apache, JSON, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, CodeIgniter

• Caché – a relational database produced by the Boston-based company Intersystems (the same system they use to produce TrakCare)

• HHIMS – MySQL, PHP, Java, HTML5, CSS3, CodeIgniter

• PrimaCare – PostGreSQL, PHP, CodeIgniter

• MDS (Multi-Disease Surveillance) legacy version – Caché object script, SQL, Java, HTML, XML, JSON

Lunar staff were trained in the Eastern University and in several computer schools in Colombo and Batticaloa. Several staff have trained in the U.S.A. and Switzerland and in Bangaluru, India. 

Since its incorporation, implementation of patient record systems has been the principal activity of Lunar Technologies. Over a ten-year period, our staff have installed systems in 27 hospitals in the Eastern Province and 13 hospitals in Sabaragamuwa, North-Western and Western Provinces and 3 private clinics. Most of these systems are still running, some even after 9 years. Our training program covers every aspect of computer use – general familiarity with the mouse and keyboard, registering patients, entering medical details (with special emphasis on entry of medical terms), producing reports and system maintenance and troubleshooting.

From 2006 to 2009 the team worked on a Red Cross project to produce, install and maintain medical software in the Eastern Province. Following the end of that project in 2009, our staff continued to work in 23 of those hospitals and also in further hospitals sponsored by the NWP, the Norwegian Red Cross and the RDHS, Kurunagala before starting to work with the ICTA. The HHIMS software was written and was installed in 14 hospitals.

The company can therefore boast 15 years of clinical IT development and implementation in Sri Lanka (some staff active in IT projects for more than 20 years) and we are by far the leading supplier of patient record systems in the country. We are also building up an international clientèle and are active in developing medical software for three other Asian countries.

During the Red Cross project, our staff worked with the Solidarity Chain of Switzerland and the Kurier Press of Austria. On visits by these authorities, our activities were highly commended. Locally we collaborated with the Epidemiology Department of the Health Ministry and the local office of WHO. We have carried out other successful projects under contract for the Swiss Development Corporation (Government of Switzerland), Sierra Construction (Pvt) Ltd. and the Health Services of the EP, SGP, NWP and WP.

The Chairman is an experienced project manager who has worked at the highest level on technical projects with Governments in Europe, Africa, Central Asia, South America and the Middle East.

The Chairman of Lunar Technologies was previously a World Bank consultant in Egypt, Nepal, India, Central Asia and Yemen on improving health care system and introducing technological solutions. During their time with WHO, he and his Administrative Assistant worked on many projects funded by the World Health Organization, the UNDP and the European Union.

Lunar has worked with:

• International organizations (UN, WHO, UNICEF),

• Large NGOs (Red Cross, Caritas, Helvetas, Americares),

• Regional Health Services in 5 Sri Lankan Provinces,

• Swiss Government offices in Jaffna and Colombo,

• The MDS project was carried out in close collaboration with the Health Ministry (Department of Epidemiology),

• The development and the pilot installations of the HHIMS software were carried out under contract with the health services and the ICTA.

• A Malaysian Health Ministry project to improve the record keeping of General Practitioners

• A Cambodian Health Ministry project to improve and better document the treatment of Leprosy and to reduce the stigma associated with the disease.

• The WHO to develop a MOODLE teaching program for its software.