InterSystems Corporation announced that Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is using InterSystems Ensemble® for an extensive project to rationalise its IT architecture and implement a strategic approach to application integration. The Trust chose Ensemble, a rapid integration and development platform, to implement a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach to increase its IT service flexibility. This strategy has enabled the Trust to transform its application integration activity from being an overhead to a value-added opportunity.
The overall project covers approximately 50 critical applications, accessed by 3,000 users, including Accident & Emergency, Patient Administration, Pathology, and Electronic Observations. The hospital anticipates major changes in its application portfolio over the coming years and so decided to ensure it has the IT flexibility to manage the change without service disruption.
Using Ensemble in an SOA approach enables Luton and Dunstable to separate its application functions into distinct services that can then be reused and combined in new ways. This provides the hospital with application services that are flexible and easy to adapt to the changing needs of its users, and reduces the cost of new application maintenance and development.
Luton and Dunstable Hospital selected Integrella Limited, an InterSystems implementation partner, to deliver the Ensemble implementation using a flexible Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) architecture suitable to its SOA approach. The project is a four-phased migration expected to run for 12 months. Marcus Davies, Integrella Co-Founder, added, "We have seen a common theme in NHS Trust IT departments to reduce the reliance on tightly integrated vendor systems and increase IT agility. We are pleased to be able to help Luton and Dunstable implement a successful SOA style IT framework."
Commenting on the project, Mark England, Head of IT for Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said, "We are not unusual as an organisation in that our IT systems have grown and evolved over the years into quite a complex beast. A mixture of legacy systems and highly critical patient applications meant we needed an integration platform that could help us create a flexible architecture to ensure we can easily adapt to the changing nature of healthcare IT in the future." Mark added, "Ensemble has performed extremely well and we're delighted with the results to date of our phased migration. InterSystems' knowledge, experience, and leadership in healthcare integration, especially the healthcare interoperability HL7-based standards, make them an ideal choice for our requirements."
Phil Birchall, Healthcare Business Development Director, InterSystems, added, "Luton and Dunstable is an important project for Integrella and InterSystems. It shows how Ensemble provides a very flexible integration capability, and that cumulative benefits can be gained when a Trust has the vision to make a strategic investment in integration."
Related news articles:
- InterSystems' Profile
About InterSystems
InterSystems Corporation is the worldwide leader in software for connected healthcare. With headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and offices in 23 countries, InterSystems provides innovative products that enable fast development, deployment, and integration of enterprise-class applications.
InterSystems Ensemble® is a rapid integration and development platform that enriches applications with new functionality, and makes them connectable. InterSystems Caché® is a high performance object database that makes applications faster and more scalable. InterSystems DeepSee™ is software that makes it possible to embed real-time business intelligence in transactional applications, enabling better operational decisions. InterSystems HealthShare™ is a platform that enables the fastest creation of an Electronic Health Record for regional or national health information exchange. InterSystems TrakCare™ is a connected healthcare information system that is Web-based and rapidly delivers the benefits of an Electronic Patient Record. For more information, visit InterSystems.co.uk.
About Luton and Dunstable NHS Foundation Trust
It has a national and growing international, reputation for innovation, improvement and patient safety. It was the first NHS Foundation Trust created in Luton, Bedfordshire, and Hertfordshire. It is the best performing hospital in East of England (as announced by the Care Quality Commission in October 2009) and is leading the NHS in patient safety.
About Integrella Limited
Integrella is a UK based consultancy and InterSystems Ensemble Implementation Partner, providing specialist Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) integration and Business Process Management solutions to the NHS. Integrella has a proven track record of delivering robust SOA and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) solutions in healthcare and finance in order to leverage new and existing IT investments.