News
Great Western Hospitals integrates nine applications in three months
4 November 2009
Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Swindon has
linked nine of its clinical applications, including its electronic
discharge summary and theatre systems, with data from its patient
administration system using the InterSystems Ensemble integration
platform.
Two of these communicate directly with the new integration platform; the
other seven are linked to it via an intermediate patient database. This
project was achieved in just three months.
According to Alistair Dewar, the Software Development Team Leader at
the Trust, “We chose Ensemble because it was easy to use and we liked
the fact that it came with a full HL7 schema. This meant it could
support HL7 ‘straight out of the box.’ We also liked the performance of
the database technology that is integral to Ensemble, as we found this
to be much faster than other databases that we have used. Furthermore,
every time we use Ensemble to create a new interface in the future, we
can re-use existing translations, business logic and business processes
we have embedded within it, making it very cost-effective.”
The development of the required interfaces was undertaken by Restart
Consulting, an InterSystems Ensemble Implementation Partner that is
highly experienced in integration projects within the healthcare sector.
As part of its support, Restart ran an ‘Integration Workshop’ and will
be providing on-going mentoring of Trust IT staff.
Phil Birchall, head of healthcare business development for
InterSystems UK, said. “We are delighted that the Great Western
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has adopted and used Ensemble so
successfully in association with Restart. In addition, it is good to
know that when they need additional support, it can be supplied by
Restart, a very experienced healthcare integration specialist.”
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