InterSystems celebrated the award of the UK's first fully compliant Interoperability Toolkit (ITK) accreditation by the National Integration Centre and Assurance (NICA) Technology Office. The InterSystems ITK is built upon InterSystems Ensemble®, a seamless platform for integration and the development of new connectable applications. It enables Trusts to provide healthcare services more closely fitted to patient needs by making it much easier to integrate systems. Significantly, it will enable this by building incremental value on existing services and providing enhanced interoperability between them. As such it will lower the cost associated with future integration significantly.
The Toolkit specification, created by the Technology Office, is a set of technical and governance standards and frameworks for interoperability. It covers transactional and analytical services aimed at accelerating the pace of delivery and is in line with the Department of Health's strategy to 'connect all' rather than 'replace all', as outlined in the recent White Paper, 'Equity & Excellence: Liberating the NHS'.
To achieve the milestone for its integration platform being used as the ITK middleware, InterSystems spent the last eight months working closely with London NHS Trusts in various clinical settings and then successfully completed the rigorous testing process. The testing process was comprised of predefined validation checks using the ITK 'Testbench', which included positive interface testing, negative testing, and end-to-end simulation. This culminated in a thorough compliance report.
The release of the UK's first fully compliant ITK will offer Trusts the ability to deliver greater flexibility with their IT infrastructure, with improved business intelligence, by reducing the barriers for entry of new breakthrough applications and device-enabled services. Such applications and services already include pilots with mobile applications for 'live' patient monitoring where information is sent back directly to the patient's health record and kiosks for patient self check-in and feedback at outpatient clinics.
Brett Marshall, Head of the National Integration Centre, commented, "Standards-driven interoperability is the key to improving the patient experience. I am confident that the ITK will lead to innovative new approaches to the delivery of care and will put information in the hands of the patient. InterSystems has been at the forefront of the initiative since its inception and is the first company to achieve a full accreditation."
Jonathan Selby, InterSystems Country Manager, UK, added, "InterSystems' drive for early ITK compliance underlines our commitment to delivering connected healthcare. The ITK is a brand new generation of user-configurable healthcare integration that enables NHS Trusts to unlock more of the value of their IT investment. They can ensure that new breakthrough applications will work seamlessly with the tried-and-tested legacy systems, in an affordable and sustainable manner."
InterSystems Ensemble already has a widely-installed base in the UK NHS as the default integration platform for CSC. It is also used by BT, and has been independently chosen by many NHS Trusts. Earlier in 2010 Ensemble was selected as the national integration platform for Scotland, and it is an integral component of InterSystems TrakCare Lab™ national contract for Wales. The popularity of Ensemble goes beyond the UK and healthcare, as it is used globally and in other industry sectors including public sector, publishing, financial services, manufacturing, retail and logistics.
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- InterSystems' Profile
About InterSystems
InterSystems Corporation is the worldwide leader in software for connected healthcare. With headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and offices in 25 countries, InterSystems provides advanced software technologies for breakthrough applications.
InterSystems Ensemble® is a seamless platform for integration and the development of connectable applications. 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 Web-based healthcare information system that rapidly delivers the benefits of an Electronic Patient Record. 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.
For more information, please visit: InterSystems.co.uk.