InterSystems IRIS for Health Technology Guide

InterSystems IRIS for Health™ helps healthcare organizations turn interoperability from a technical burden into an operational capability. It supports modern and legacy standards, complex healthcare workflows, and high-volume data exchange in one platform, making it easier to connect systems, normalize data, and deliver information where it is needed.

With InterSystems IRIS for Health, you can:

• Speak healthcare natively: HL7® FHIR® (STU3, R4), HL7 V2®, IHE profiles (XDS.b, XCA, PIX/PDQ, MHD), CDA/C CDA, DICOM, and X12 are supported with rich development tooling and templates.
• Transform data into what you need: Prebuilt, extensible transformations convert among modern and legacy representations (e.g., HL7 V2 ↔ FHIR, CDA → HL7 V2), so you can integrate without replatforming source systems.
• Build on a real FHIR foundation: A full FHIR server with standard REST APIs, an enterprise FHIR resource repository, OAuth-based authorization Bulk FHIR export, and a guided FHIR SQL Builder that projects complex FHIR graphs into analytics-ready relational views. (FHIR SQL Builder and certain BI features require InterSystems IRIS for Health Advanced Server.)

InterSystems IRIS for Health unifies connectivity and data use, not just exchange, so you can implement care journeys, analytics, and AI that rely on complete, current, and governed information.

• Interoperability: HL7 V2, HL7 FHIR (server, repository, Bulk FHIR, OAuth), IHE profiles, CDA/C CDA, DICOM, X12; prebuilt transformations.
• Data platform: Multi-model (tables, objects, documents, key-value, multidimensional, columnar, embedded vectors), multi-workload (transactional + analytical) with ACID; vector databases and search.
• Performance & scale: High throughput ingestion; concurrent analytics; vertical parallelization; horizontal scale via ECP caching and sharding.
• Analytics & AI: IntegratedML, NLP, BI & dashboards, Adaptive Analytics, Reporting, FHIR SQL Builder, columnar storage. (Some capabilities require Advanced Server.)
• Developer experience: Unified low-code environment; client and server side development in Java, .NET, Node.js, Python, and ObjectScript; message management; full lifecycle API management (IAM).
• Security & governance: Authentication, authorization, auditing, and encryption for data in motion and at rest.
• Flexible deployment: Managed service and portable software across public cloud, private cloud, on-premises, and hybrid; Smart Health Data Services for FHIR and transformation.

Use low-code integration to “connect” and query data on demand without creating unnecessary copies, and “collect” selectively into the InterSystems IRIS for Health multi-model, multi-workload database where it benefits performance and governance. You can do both in the same solution.

InterSystems IRIS for Health is optimized for real-time healthcare. It ingests high-rate transactional streams while simultaneously running analytic and operational queries (ACID compliant), including efficient, ultra-fast vector search for high-dimensional embeddings supporting modern AI workloads.

• Flexible scalability: Scale the way your use case demands. Address your specific workload demands by choosing the right strategy.
• Vertical scale: via automated parallelization on multicore machines for optimal cloud price performance.
• Horizontal scale via Enterprise Cache Protocol (ECP): to add users with transparent, secure caching on application servers and via sharding to distribute very large datasets — with queries fanned out and results aggregated automatically. ECP and sharding combine transparently to handle both user concurrency and data volume.

Turn on columnar storage for order of magnitude speedups on large aggregations and hybrid transactional/analytical (HTAP) queries, especially when exploring clinical or operational metrics at scale. (Advanced Server required.)

InterSystems IRIS for Health lets teams go beyond reports to operational AI-generative and predictive-running close to governed clinical data and real-time workflows. You can ground assistants and automations in FHIR data, orchestrate decisions in live message flows, and deploy safely with enterprise controls.

• GenAI + Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) on trusted health data: Use a full FHIR server and repository with OAuth and Bulk FHIR to retrieve governed context, then ground LLMs for care coordination, coding support, prior authorization, and member/patient engagement.
• Native vectors for speed and simplicity: Store embeddings and run ultrafast similarity search inside the database — leveraging a native vector datatype, hardware-level optimizations (SIMD), and SQL functions such as vector_cosine and vector_dot_product. No separate vector DB is required.
• Python in the engine: Build AI pipelines in your preferred libraries (LangChain, LlamaIndex, SQLAlchemy) with Embedded Python for low-latency execution next to the data.
• Operational Machine Learning (ML) for SQL developers: With IntegratedML®, create, train, and execute models using a few SQL statements — including event-driven inference on live transactions.
• NLP for clinical text: Extract concepts from notes to enrich features, retrieval, and predictions all within the platform.
• Governance & control: Apply role-based access, auditing, encryption, and full lifecycle API management (including FHIR APIs) to keep AI workloads safe and observable.
• Result: Faster AI delivery with fewer moving parts — vectors, data, security, and runtime on one platform.

Run analytics directly against live operational data while connecting to your favorite external tools when needed. Use InterSystems IRIS for Health to shorten time to insight without fragile data pipelines.

• FHIR, ready for analysis: FHIR SQL Builder guides you to project only the resources, links, and elements you need into relational views — no data moves — so BI tools and SQL analysts can work efficiently. (Advanced Server required.)
• BI & self-service: Build governed semantic layers, dashboards, and cubes with Business Intelligence (BI) and Adaptive Analytics for self service exploration. (Advanced Server options available.)
• Performance at scale: Turn on Columnar Storage for order of magnitude speedups on large aggregations and HTAP Hybrid Transactional Analytical Processing) scenarios and use Reporting for pixel perfect outputs and schedules. (Advanced Server required.)

InterSystems IRIS for Health gives development teams a healthcare-focused toolchain for building production applications that combine interoperability, workflow orchestration, data services, and APIs. Developers can visually compose integrations where that accelerates delivery, write custom logic in familiar languages where precision is required, and manage messages, transformations, APIs, and runtime extensions within a single platform designed for regulated healthcare environments.

• Unified low-code environment: Visually design integrations and processes; define transformations; incorporate business rules and human tasks; and trace messages end-to-end to speed troubleshooting and delivery.
• Your language, your choice: Build with Java, C#/.NET, Node.js, Python, and InterSystems ObjectScript, on the client or server side. Python and ObjectScript run embedded in the IRIS for Health kernel for extreme performance.
• Message management out of the box: Secure persistence, visual tracking, auditing, resends/reroutes, alerting, and event logging — no extra plumbing required.
• Full life cycle API management: InterSystems API Manager (IAM) centralizes API traffic (including FHIR APIs) with throttling, security, monitoring, and a developer portal for onboarding and documentation.
• Extensibility: Bring your Java, .NET, and Python components to create custom adapters and runtime extensions.

InterSystems IRIS for Health provides strong, consistent security built on authentication (including two factor), role and application-based authorization, comprehensive auditing (append only logs queryable via SQL), and encryption for data at rest and in motion, including block-level database encryption.

With InterSystems IRIS for Health, organizations can run healthcare data, interoperability, and analytics workloads where it works best: in major public clouds, as a managed service, or on premises. With a consistent API across deployment types, InterSystems IRIS for Health gives organizations flexibility without locking them into a single cloud provider.

Organizations can also extend their InterSystems IRIS for Health environment with focused, cloud-centric managed services, including:

• InterSystems FHIR Server for secure, scalable FHIR storage and sharing.
• InterSystems FHIR to OMOP, which maps and transforms FHIR resources into the OMOP Common Data Model.

This helps organizations standardize clinical data for cohort discovery, observational research, population analytics, quality measurement, and AI/ML model development.

• Cross-vendor EHR and partner integration: Normalize and orchestrate HL7 V2, FHIR, CDA, and X12 flows; enforce policies; and surface unified patient and member context across experiences.
• Population health & quality programs: Use Bulk FHIR and analytics to power risk stratification, gap in care reporting, and clinical quality measures — with a governed path from raw to reportable.
• Imaging and diagnostics: Blend DICOM, lab, and operational data to streamline turnaround times and automate downstream workflows.
• AI assisted care and operations: Combine vector search, IntegratedML, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and governed FHIR data to ground LLMs in high-quality, current clinical information for safer automations and assistants.
• Developer-friendly FHIR apps: Stand up a full FHIR server quickly, transform legacy feeds, and project analytics views — all in one platform.

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Products and services are subject to InterSystems terms and conditions. Information is provided for general informational purposes, may change without notice, and is provided without warranty. Product availability, functionality, and regulatory status may vary by offering, jurisdiction, and intended use.

For information regarding specific offerings, including availability and regulatory status, please contact your InterSystems Representative.

For information regarding InterSystems approach to AI, visit InterSystems AI Guidelines.