Healthcare IT Breakthrough: Evolving to Advanced Integration Technology

A business case for the transition from eGate to InterSystems EnsembleÆ From interface engine to integration platform Healthcare IT is evolving so rapidly that the term "HL7 interface engine" may soon become extinct. Forces driving this evolution include:

• Government and markets pushing hospitals and integrated delivery networks (IDNs) toward broad-based health information sharing, within and between organizations
• Clinical and administrative staffs needing more information, faster, to improve patient care and control costs
• The need for real-time business intelligence capability to measure progress toward goals, whether Meaningful Use objectives or the organization's own patient care, safety, and profitability targets

Legacy interface engines, such as eGate, simply do not have the architecture or capabilities needed to adapt to these forces. Instead, healthcare IT organizations are turning to a new type of integration and development platform. The platform must be a world-class HL7 interface engine. But it also must support a range of other data interchange and messaging standards (such as XML, X12, and SOAP) and provide rapid development of connections to data sources and applications that don't "speak" HL7. The integration platform should be a central resource that stores all the messages that pass through it for concurrent or later analysis by business intelligence applications. And it must be ready to support new types of integration and process automation as you bring them into your IT infrastructure. This includes service- oriented architecture (SOA), event-driven architecture (EDA), business process management, and adaptable workflow. The limitations of legacy interface engines in meeting these new requirements make the need to replace them increasingly urgent. Using examples from six healthcare organizations, this document presents a business case for replacing interface engines, like eGate, with the advanced capabilities of the InterSystems Ensemble rapid integration and development platform.