Meet Nigel Salm - New Developer Community Moderator!

Hi Community!

Let's warmly welcome @Nigel.Salm5021 as our new Moderator in the Developer Community Team!

Who is this guy? Let's get to know Nigel better!

Nigel is a Senior Systems Architect at Health System Technologies, Cape Town Area, South Africa.

He's been working with InterSystems technology for more than 36 years! WOW!

Below is a career path and some words from Nigel himself:

1985 – 1994 | London, UK

– I moved to London from South Africa in 1985 and just by chance my first employer was a software house that wrote Shipping Software based on MUMPS (ISM, DTM, DEC and MSM). I became a member of the MUMPS ANSII Standards committee and worked on the implementation of a MUMPS Windows Interface. I wrote my first large application that managed the Inland Container Management for Hapag-Lloyd. From there I joined Hoskyns where I became the Team Leader of the inhouse Development Methodology Application generator based on MUMPS. That was when I was introduced to Paul Grabsheid who invited me to work for InterSystems.

1994– 2007 | InterSystems, London, Europe, Asia and Africa

–  I joined InterSystems as a Sales Engineer and for the next 13 years I ran around the world introducing Caché to existing MUMPS customers as well as new customers. At first I worked with UK customers and then I moved into Holland, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Dubai, Qatar and for 3 years I spent a lot of time in the new InterSystems Israel Office. As a Sales Engineer I wrote a number of small applications that demonstrated the functionality of Cache Objects, Cache SQL, Cache Direct and CSP. I became involved in many Performance Comparisons between Caché and Oracle or SQL Server on different hardware platforms. During my time in Israel the one application I was most proud of was “Just Ask” which started as a CSP application that used MathML, a Mathematical Markup Language for describing and rendering Mathematical Formulae which I developed for Haifa University which allowed the Mathematics Professors to describe mathematical questions, hints on how to tackle the solution and finally, the resolved solution. The application was used by students preparing for exams. Later on it included a Physics Module with Flash animations. Around that time, I made many visits to India. In 2001 I moved back to South Africa where we had just opened the InterSystems South Africa Office.

2009 | Qatar Ministry of Health (Qatar)

–  During 2009 (April – September) I contracted to HealthCare Solutions in Dubai to work on a project for the Qatar Ministry of Health. The project was based at a Qatar Ministry of Health Clinic in Doha. The project integrated an Oracle Based Hospital Information System (SQL) with a Phillips PACS Radiology Package (HL7 v2.3) and 10 AxSym Laboratory devices (ASTM). The project used Ensemble 2008 and was successfully completed and has been running live since the end of 2009.

2009-2011 | TrakCare Lab and the NHLS (South Africa)

–  For these 18 months, I was worked for Health System Technologies who were implementing TrakCare Lab for the National Laboratory Health Services (NHLS) in South Africa. During that time I wrote a number of Laboratory Instrument Interfaces, many HL7 Interfaces and an SQL Interface to the Oracle based Corporate Data Warehouse. 

2011 – 2014 | InterSystems and InterSystems Trak

–  In 2011 I returned to InterSystems where I worked as a Support Engineer for LabTrak primarily supporting the National Health Laboratory Systems. I was involved in the design and implemented of the first Web Based Lab Results Viewer and spent several months working in the Sydney Office. 

2015 – 2019 | Right to Care and Right-ePharmacy

–  In 2015 I was introduced to Right to Care where I wrote the Interface between TriMed Pharmacy Application and Mach4 Pharmacy dispensing Robots. During those 4 years, I wrote three increasingly complex and feature-rich versions of the Robot Interface which managed the allocation of Medication Dispense requests to clusters of Pharmacy Robots. The Interface was deployed in 2 of the largest hospital Pharmacies and Right to Care’s HIV and TB clinic. Eventually, there were 9 sights all running various implementations of Robot Technology. For the last 18 months of that period, I worked with the CSIR where we developed a prototype Medication Dispensing Robot specifically designed to dispense medications packaged in plastic Sachets.

2019 – Current | Health System Technologies

–  In 2019 I made a major life change and moved to Cape Town where I joined Health System Technologies where I have been involved in the development of their Enterprise Master Consumer Index which uses iFind Indexing and sophisticated algorithms to create and manage the demographic data of 15 million Patients in the Western Cape Province. We have been working with IRIS for Health developing modules for a variety of Health Care Management Services with a strong emphasis on FHIR.

Hobbies and Life

–  I love gardening and in particular growing Orchids.  I have painted since I was a kid. Now I am developing my skills with digital art programs. I was married to Greg Bloom for many years. One of the first Gay marriages after the new Constitution of South Africa was introduced. I now live in Cape Town with Jean-Claude. I have 8 cats and a Guesthouse in Johannesburg where my husband lives. 

Summary

–  From my very first job in London and for the following 36 years my life has been intrinsically linked to InterSystems and I consider myself to be one of the luckiest people alive to have had the honor of working with unquestionably one of the best companies in the world and have had the pleasure of playing a role in every stage of the development of Caché, Ensemble and IRIS. When I had my first Interview with Terry Ragon in 1994, the one thing that he said that has stuck in my mind for all these years. He said, “I understand exactly who you are how we will develop your unique skills You have found your home in InterSystems”. How true those words proved to be!

Discord: NigelTSalm#8872

Email: Nigel.salm@outlook.com 

So!

Warm welcome, Thank you and congratulations, @Nigel.Salm5021! 👏🏼

Hope you will be a great Moderator! Good luck!