Healthcare Partners Improves Interface Integration Engine by Using Biztalk Server

HealthCare Partners Improves Interface Integration Engine by Using BizTalk Server

Published: April 2003

HealthCare Partners(HCP) is a leader in delivering high-quality patient care and medical group management to the greater Los Angeles community. The company operated multiple interface engines with growing cost and complexity. The company’s existing interface engine strategy was making it increasingly costly to implement better integration solutions. In search of a solution that would offer more flexibility at a more affordable cost, HCP turned to InterKnowlogy and Microsoft.With help from Microsoft and InterKnowlogy, HCP was able to implement the Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for Microsoft SQL Server and the HL7 Accelerator from NeoTool Development and gained an interface engine system that was less costly to develop,worked better and faster, and was more extensible than the in-place Neon and Cloverleaf systems.

Situation

HealthCare Partners (HCP) is a leading medical group in California and takes care of more than 420,000 patients through 40 medical practice and administration offices throughout the greater Los Angeles area. HCP doctors and employees devote themselves daily to living up to the vision statement that reads, in part, "HealthCare Partners is dedicated to the well-being and respectful, compassionate healing of our patients and our communities." To stay true to this vision, HCP relies on an effective enterprise application integration (EAI) system to tie together the different data sources that exchange patient medical information using the Health Level 7 (HL7)message standard.On a daily basis, HCP receives lab results in HL7 format (with minor deviations) across a direct Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection.A Cloverleaf system had been receiving the HL7 messages and performing some nominal validation and transformation of the data before transmitting to HCP’s IDX system, also usinga direct TCP/IP connection.

As the costs for interface support and maintenance began increasing,becauseof Cloverleaf’s and Neon’s cumbersome development environment, and the availability of knowledgeable developers to build new tools started decreasing, HCP began to search for something better. Recognizingthe need to cut development costs while maintaining the ability to easily integrate future interface engines into the IT infrastructure, HCP turned to Microsoft and InterKnowlogy to help implement a better interface engine solution.

Solution

HCP’s goalwas to replace the Cloverleaf system with a pilot Microsoft®BizTalk® Server solution that would:

• Be “invisible” to the lab sending the original data, so that the lab would not be affected by the change.

• Be “invisible” to the IDX Clinical Repository System receiving the data from BizTalk Server.

• Perform the same nominal validation and formatting of the data that werebeing performed by the Cloverleaf system.

• Add the functionality of nominal separate data storage to a Microsoft SQL Server™database to facilitate weekly reporting.

• Provide reliable transmission and storage of the data.

Creating the Interface Engine

To start the process, Microsoft’s Technology Specialists developed a pilot program that illustrated the benefits of BizTalk Server and SQL Server. They built a system that would support interface applications and allow HCP to develop interface engine applications easily, using the Microsoft .NET Framework. The solution was built around a central BizTalk Server that helps integrate data and information coming from different sources running on different platforms. To build the new interface engine, the Technology Specialists integrated two powerful BizTalk tools: the Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for SQL Server and an HL7 Accelerator from NeoTool Development.

The BizTalk Server and NeoTool interface receives information in the format of an OUR-R01 HL7 v2.2 derivative message from one of HCP’s remote laboratory applications (LIMMS) over the HL7 Minimum Layer Protocol (MLP).The new interface transforms that message and then inserts the data into HCP’sIDX system by way of MLP.

To integrate the information in the SQL Server databases with the new BizTalk Server solution, InterKnowlogy, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner,incorporated the BizTalk Adapter for SQL Server. The adapter efficiently integrates vital data between Microsoft SQL Server and any of the applications hosted on BizTalk Server. Best of all, the adapter can be configured using a standard interface and can administer each receive function instance for a particular solution, using that interface. And the application integration component of the adapter allows XML-based data to move from BizTalk Server to the SQL Server database.

The BizTalkAdapter for SQL Server gives HCP the ability to integrate the BizTalk Server solution with existing SQL Server metadata without having to buildanentirely new,custom solution.

Supporting HL7

The original Cloverleaf system handled messages from an external laboratory, sending themto HCP in HL7 format—the industry standard. For this aspect of the project, the team turned toNeoTool and its HL7 Accelerator for BizTalk Server.

InterKnowlogy helped implement BizTalk Server and the NeoTool HL7 Accelerator to receive clinical data in HL7 format over a dedicated, private network set up at HCP and integrate that information into the company IDX Clinical Repository System for storage.

“The combination of NeoTool HL7 Accelerator and Microsoft BizTalk Serverprovides the healthcare industry with an XML-centric interface engine, allowing analysts to quickly and accurately implement HL7 interfaces,” says Dave Shaver, Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO),NeoTool Development, LLC. “Together, they can handle any type of clinical and business data messaging.”

Within a short time, HCP and InterKnowlogy constructed a viable, fully functionalsolution that provided a Microsoft-based interface engine for HCP’s clinical and patient data systems. “In a matter of days, we were able to set up a pilot and build a working interface that did most of what the Cloverleaf system had beendoing,” says Dave Finkel, Director of Systems Architecture atHCP. “With the Cloverleaf system, we would have spent months trying to do the same task with our previous interface tools.”

Benefits

Since completion of the pilot application, InterKnowlogy has helped HCP roll out a complete BizTalk Server solution to replace HCP’s Cloverleaf system. With greater flexibility and a new environment that makes development easier, HCP now enjoys the benefits of an integrated interface engine solution that is poised to take advantage of XML Web services and the .NET Framework.

Easy Integration,Even with Disparate Systems

The most important benefit to be derived from HCPchoosing a BizTalk Server solution is the ease with which it can now integrate existing systems running on different platforms. With a fully integrated system, employees spend less time duplicating records for patients and clinical information, which reduces the potential for introducing inaccurate data reporting and recording. “It is very hard to integrate Cloverleaf and NEON with different systems because they operate on different platforms,” says Phil Peng,Manager of Advance Technology Development for HCP.“Because BizTalk uses the .NET Framework, integrating the interface engine with different systems and platforms is much easier.”

Lower Total Cost of Ownership

Developers at HCP know and understand Microsoft technologies, so operating and IT-support costs for maintaining the BizTalk Server solution will remain low becauseHCP can support the new interface engines with development resources the company already has. Also, HCP interface developerscanwork in an environment that doesn’t require additional training. “Significanttime duringimplementation typically is spent having programmerslearn a new writingenvironment,” says Peng. “Microsoft is such a popular platform; we were able to train our Microsoft programmers to support development in this environment in an extremely short period of time.”

Accelerated Implementation Time

InterKnowlogy’s mentoring and training of HCP’s IT staff combined with the short learning curve required for developers to work with BizTalk Server 2002 saved time during the development stage.BizTalk Server really offered a powerful, easy-to-use development toolfor building new EAI applications; future interface development should take even less time. David Finkel comments, “We were able to reduce the complexity of support and development that the mixed interface engines caused us. Now we have a single interface engine solution which we can rapidly design develop and deploy, and that integrates well into the new technologies and standards which Microsoft has to offer. “

For More Information

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