From the Desk of Dimitri Fane
Welcome to the 6th issue of the InterSystems OnTrak News Flash. We started these newsletters in April as part of our overall response to COVID-19. There was an urgent need to share information about new functionality related to COVID-19, and we also recognized that our position working with roughly 30 countries across the globe gave us a unique perspective on healthcare amid a global pandemic. We resolved to take advantage of this perspective by sharing information and stories from some regions to benefit others. We hope you’ve found these communications helpful, and we especially hope that the product functionality we’ve delivered has helped your organization in responding to these unprecedented times.
While we were doing all of this, something interesting happened. Without necessarily meaning to, we got into the habit of communicating frequently and found that we have a lot to share beyond the strict focus on COVID-19. The pace of our work directly driven by COVID-19 has stabilized. At the same time, we’ve moved into a continuous release process, whereby we’re able to offer new functionality as soon as it’s ready, in both the T2019 and T2020 releases. This means more functionality available to you in your production release, without having to wait for a major platform upgrade. It also means there will be a lot more to talk about on a regular basis in terms of new product functionality.
So, with this in mind, we’re pleased to announce that we will broaden the scope of these newsletters beyond the strict focus on COVID-19 to include regular updates about new features that will interest you, new stories about customer successes, and messages from partners that may aid our customers. We aim to release a newsletter every two or three months.
Some of you may have read in the press about Apple’s announcement recently that they have made iPhone health record download available in the UK, joining the US and Canada as regions where this is available. We have been working behind the scenes with Apple and with a select few clients in the UK for some time now and I’m excited that we can now share this news with you. Using TrakCare and InterSystems IRIS FHIR platform and Apple Health’s capabilities we can now support direct patient access to their data, securely and privately, at scale in the UK. You can read more about this below.
Finally, many of you are aware that each year InterSystems hosts a Global Summit in the U.S. This is a large event where we have a chance to get together with our clients, share updates and announcements, and host focus sessions to dive deeper into specific topics. Given that Global Summit is virtual this year, we’re including a full stream of TrakCare content. The event content is available online and free of charge. No cost—and no jet lag! We hope that this will allow many more TrakCare clients to attend than in previous years.