Our friends at InterSystems Corporation tell us the company has completed an integration initiative at Stanford Hospital and Clinics (SHC), part of the Stanford University Medical Center, enabling multiple changes in care delivery processes. With the migration from legacy integration software to the InterSystems Ensemble rapid integration and development platform, SHC is now processing more than 2.2 million HL7 messaging transactions on a daily basis.

The transition to Ensemble as the foundation for SHC's long-term clinical strategy implementation began with integrating all clinical applications to the hospital's EpicCare Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system, which is built on the InterSystems CACHÉ high-performance object database. Integration of administrative and financial systems including billing, claims, and patient registration came next. "We've integrated multiple medical devices to EpicCare, a part of the overall integration project that generates our highest transaction volume of about a million transactions each day," SHC CTO Michael Keselman says.

The move to Ensemble has enabled multiple changes in care delivery processes, according to Keselman. Ensemble delivers automated alerts whenever an interface issue arises, and SHC has customized the software to generate alerts based on the critical nature of the interface. "End users are automatically notified and everyone in the affected departments as well as the IT staff is aware of it when interface issues arise," he explains. "If, for example, an order is placed for a lab test for a person coming into the emergency room, the clinicians are automatically informed if the lab application is unable to receive the test order. In a scenario such as this, the clinicians will call in the order, eliminating wait time that can be critical in emergency scenarios."