Role of Mirth Interface Engine in Healthcare Interoperability
Integration engines are a cardinal piece of the healthcare Interoperability puzzle. Healthcare Institutes like hospitals, labs and clinics generate huge amounts of data and face a slew of interchange standards and protocols when addressing the issue of interoperability between information systems. But before we dive deep into integration challenges in the healthcare ecosystem let us know what an Interface engine is.
What is an Integration Engine?
An integration engine is software which moves data between healthcare IT systems. This process involves the transformation of data between messaging standards and requires support for multiple transmission protocols. Interface engines receive incoming messages and route them to the appropriate information systems. The engine also translates messages into formats that can be understood by the receiving system.
Integration Problem in Healthcare Systems
A large amount of data is generated due to the activities within a healthcare organization. This data needs to be shared within and across the healthcare organization to provide better care. Hence, Interfaces were developed to allow data exchange using messaging standards. There is number of standards available to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare data delivery. Among all, HL7 has established itself as the prime language for interoperability between different healthcare systems. These standards address the data at the application layer, they often do not restrict the transmission protocol used.
Now, these interfaces are based on the different standards, versions, and transmission protocols, leading to distinctive healthcare information systems. Further, healthcare systems need a custom interface solution to communicate with each other. But, a custom point-to-point interface can be implemented in situations where a known data standard and protocol are being used and are unlikely to change.
The approach becomes difficult as new interfaces are added or the messaging standard or protocol changes as the systems evolve. Modification and adaptation of interfaces between systems should be less without rewriting them. Though integration engines like Iguana and Rhapsody provide the ability to manage multiple interfaces between systems, they provided limited messaging standards and protocol support. These engines often allow message exchange using one standard and using a limited of transmission protocols. Most often the proprietary formats are not compatible with formats designed by competing suppliers which further complicates the problem.
The development of custom components to handle new protocols is a costly addition to the often recurring licensing fees. Mirth engine provides the functionality necessary for filtering, transforming, and routing messages, and to encourage the use of standards-based messaging as a system integration solution,
What makes Mirth Connect the best Interface Engine?
Healthcare organizations use different health information systems like labs, pharmacies, clinics, and so on. Since there are many applications and systems, each of them has different protocols, incompatible data, and mismatched versions. While some systems use HL7,FHIR, X12, and DICOM, the others use XML or clinical standards like SNOMED, ICD-9 & 10, NDC, NCPDP etc.
Mirth is the solution
- The Mirth Connect interface engine is open-source solution.
It is adopted widely and has gained popularity for healthcare integration.
- As mirth is based on a unique client-server and enterprise service bus hybrid architecture, it supports the development of interfaces for moving data between two or multiple more healthcare systems
- Mirth is adaptable and scalable It is designed for a wide number of platforms such as Windows, Mac, Linux, and VMS.
- Mirth Connect is easy to use with its simple GUI.
- Mirth Engine supports multiple connection types that give solid interoperability. Supported connection (standards) types include HL7, FHIR, FTP/SFTP, DICOM, NCPDP, X12, Delimited Text, Raw Binary, ANSI X12, HTTP, XML, JMS, LLP/MLLP, and PDF/RTF.
Features of Mirth Connect include:
- view and reprocess messages
- No additional costs for scaling interfaces/channels
- interface tools
- alerts and notifications
- monitor interface statistics and connections
- support for numerous transfer protocols
- ability to write custom connectors
- support for numerous data formats and health care data standards
Additionally, Mirth also manages administrative roles and tasks that are created for users or admins. Mirth is like a gateway between labs or clinics. Mirth enables the development of mini-programs using Java and JavaScript. Mirth presents you a field for coding and you directly implemented it. Mirth developers continue to tune and refine the integration engine and new healthcare organizations join the Mirth Connect community every day.
KPi-Tech Services solves the integration problem among different healthcare systems by programming Mirth Connect interface engines to transpose HL7, XML, CCD, DICOM, EDI, NCPDP, and other messaging standards. We develop the Mirth Appliances deployment platform and its Postgre SQL database to integrate Mirth features into Hospital Information Systems (HIS), Electronic Health Records (EHR) & Practice Management Systems (PMS).
