CUSTOMER: Large health system in the Southeast U.S., comprising 51 hospital campuses and hundreds of care sites across nine states.
CHALLENGE: They needed a scalable integration engine for transitioning from multiple electronic health record (EHR) platforms to Epic as a unified system.
OUTCOME: Built a robust integration platform with InterSystems HealthShare Health Connect in under a year that now supports 1,000 interfaces, 104 million messages per weekday and 136 connected systems.
A large health system in the Southeast region has grown to become the 15th largest health system in the US by concentrating on bringing to life a vision for whole person care. To do that, they have expanded into diverse care settings – hospitals, physician offices, home care, etc. – and locations. They now have more than 50 hospitals, and hundreds of care sites. Whole person care demands a unified patient experience across settings, and a unified health record to support that experience, but there were challenges.
Historically, there were different EHRs for each care setting. They were all connected through a legacy integration engine, which had two instances - one in the acute space and another for ambulatory services - that were deployed and managed very differently. In total, there were more than 900 interfaces, with 95 million messages per weekday over 129 connected systems, and the number was growing.
Heading into 2020, it was clear that the non-profit needed a single EHR platform with a single patient record that could span the system to fulfill its whole health vision. While they planned the transition to Epic, they also looked to modernize and consolidate their integration engine for scalability, simplicity and ease of support.
“From a technology standpoint, we were looking to provide better healthcare and to provide that one view of the patient,” said their Director of Interoperability. “We wanted a level of simplicity that can be difficult to achieve in a large health system.”
For the integration engine, the Health System prioritized reliability, ability to support growth, and relationship. After reviewing their options, they chose InterSystems HealthShare Health Connect.
“We were looking for an integration engine that would allow us to scale. Along with that, what was important to us was the relationship with the vendor and getting the help and support we needed,” the Director of Interoperability said.
Deploying InterSystems Health Connect
The project to build an entirely new, single integration engine launched in March 2020. The Health System was prepared to hire outside consultants to help with the design and architecture of the new systems, but it proved unnecessary.
“With the InterSystems onboarding process, and the expertise of our employees, everything was straightforward, and we had all the support we needed from InterSystems.”
The majority of the build was complete and fully tested in under a year. The integration engine has consistently handled a growing number of active interfaces and messages with little planned downtime.
With Health Connect as the integration engine, The Health System continues to roll out Epic to all locations with confidence. It also will be able to easily bring new providers and locations into the system without concerns about information disruptions as it expands.