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Systems Integration in an NHS Hospital Trust using HL7 V2 and XML. Andrew Sergeant ICT Development Manager Island and Portsmouth Health ICT Service (IPHIS). Introduction. IPHIS provides ICT services to : Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust Portsmouth City PCT Hampshire PCT
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Systems Integration in an NHS Hospital Trust using HL7 V2 and XML Andrew Sergeant ICT Development Manager Island and Portsmouth Health ICT Service (IPHIS)
Introduction IPHIS provides ICT services to: • Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust • Portsmouth City PCT • Hampshire PCT • Hampshire Partnership Trust • Approx 96 GP Practices In total nearly 10,000 users.
Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust One of the largest Acute Trusts in England serving 1 million people in SE Hampshire, Isle of Wight and the Channel islands.
Current Projects • EPR and CHR (South Central SHA EPR System) • Multiple system interfacing projects (e.g. PAS ADT to Renal, Pathology to EPR) • Electronic forms and electronic workflow • Clinical correspondence system • EDM • Business Intelligence • New Intranet, Extranet, WWW site • Virtualisation (including storage and application)
Integration Issues • More than 41 existing interfaces between systems • Interfaces written using different technologies • Lack of skilled staff to maintain existing interfaces and write new ones • Inability to meet new challenges posed by national objectives, e.g. CRS
Solution • Adopt a new Integration Engine • Specify new standards and adhere to them rigorously • Use object oriented principles to encourage code re-use • Simplify interface development • Train developers to support one and not multiple technologies • Solution must be flexible and adaptable to meet new requirements as many uncertainties, e.g. CRS • Needs to be feature rich • Must be affordable!
BizTalk Server 2006 Chosen as Trust Integration Engine: • Supports current Microsoft skills in development team • XML based • HL7 Accelerator for creation of HL7 2.x messages • Other BPM features supported (e.g. RFID Manager in 2006 R2 and 2008 releases).
Challenges • Document existing interfaces • Develop standard methods of implementing message exchange between systems (orchestrations) • Other coding standards (e.g. common exception handling for error messages) • Upgrading to latest releases of software (currently a 2 year cycle) • Uncertainties, e.g. CRS revised timetable (therefore PAS Gap analysis delayed).
POC Interface • Blood Gas Analyser – Department of Critical Care to Trust EPR and CIS systems. • HL7 to HL7 (2 different versions of HL7 v2) • HL7 to XML (EPR) via Web Service
Outcome • Rapid development within timescales • Minor issues regarding deployment and support • Further interfaces commissioned
New Interfaces • IoW PAS to Fujitsu CRIS • PAS to EDM • PAS ADT to Renal (Proton) In all of the above cases SQL Server database to XML to HL7 V2.x
Issues • Developer Training and support • Initial development work outsourced • Disaster recovery (DR) • Cost of upgrade as licensing costs have changed (BizTalk Server cost has essentially doubled since we bought our licences!)
Future • CRS Issues • New interface development • Support for new technologies, e.g. RFID and mobility solutions (e.g. alerts) • Workflow and BI support.
Technical Challenges • Developer Training, recruitment and retention • Upgrade path to support new releases • A large number of legacy interfaces to migrate (approximately 41) • Many other projects competing for resource, e.g. EDM, Web Technologies, eForms and workflow.
Conclusions • Integration issues typical for an NHS Acute Trust • Slow, but gradual move to a new standard (Gartner estimate major BPM initiatives can take up to 10 years to implement!) • CRS and other Connecting for Health initiatives are a moving target • Support for XML Web Services useful for maintaining future flexibility.
Any Questions..? • andrew.sergeant@ports.nhs.uk • www.porthosp.nhs.uk • www.microsoft.com/uk/nhs/ (search under Portsmouth for BPM Article) • BizTalk whitepaper: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/techinfo/whitepapers/ 2006R2/Understanding.mspx