Mercy Medical Center
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Customer Profile:
Since 1900, thousands of Mercy Medical Center patients have received personalized health services and outstanding medical care. Today, more than 2,100 employees carry on the Mercy tradition. In 2006, Mercy Medical Center became the first Iowa hospital to receive the American Heart Association’s Performance Award, and was distinguished as a Most Wired Hospital by the American Hospital Association’s journal, Hospitals & Health Networks.
Customer Challenges:
- Existing engine was not robust enough to handle high volume of message transactions
- Both ends of a connection required a custom VB application as an adapter, creating an inefficient and labor intensive interfacing environment
- The inability to filter, electronically monitor and resend specific messages led to reactive responses to customer needs
- Efficient management and filtering of a high volume of ADT messages between radiology and PACS systems was critical to achieving desired workflow
Customer Solution:
- Installed NeoIntegrate™ to replace existing engine in order to better handle message traffic and utilize the intelligent alerting and
monitoring features
NeoIntegrate enabled Mercy Medical Center to:
- Eliminate cumbersome, manual point-to-point connections between their MEDITECH system and other healthcare applications such as
POC lab devices, PACS system, Orchard Laboratory Information System, Hall Radiation IMPAC Oncology Management System, GE Fetal
Monitor, and GE Aware Gateway
- Add connections efficiently to external providers, including clinics, imaging centers, and labs
- Handle large volumes of ADT messages while also being able to easily filter and isolate specific messages when necessary
- Monitor the interface environment & receive alerts in a proactive and timely manner, allowing for problem resolution before service
interruption
- NeoIntegrate also positions Mercy Medical Center to be able to accept inbound lab/radiology orders and pass results back to physicians
Mercy Medical Center’s Insights:
Senior Systems Analyst George Patschke, an admitted “programmer at heart,” has been using the MEDITECH system for over 20 years. His insights:
“I have been very impressed with NeoTool from a both a programmer and user perspective, and the customer support has been outstanding. While NeoIntegrate enables me to build MEDITECH interfaces quickly and monitor them effectively, the NeoTool support team really understands our needs, and delivers first-rate service. NeoTool spent time with me to make sure I was comfortable with their product and how to get the most from it. Their time and commitment really distinguished NeoTool from the other vendors I had considered.
NeoTool worked with us to develop a realistic and productive approach to implementing our required interfaces. I was so confident with the plan we had designed, we installed the interface engine on a Friday before a three day weekend. We were up and running with the NeoTool interface engine in less than half a day, and it went so smoothly, I could hardly believe it. Now, we are able to easily send and receive thousands of messages daily – ADT, ORM, ORU, etc. – and still filter and pick out individual messages to resend, when needed.
Initially, we installed NeoIntegrate to act as an ADT interface from MEDITECH to four of our other applications. Prior to the NeoIntegrate installation, we had point-to-point interfaces with each application, which became difficult to manage. When a point-to-point interface connection was dropped, it was timely and arduous to identify the problem. Most critical to the clinical staff, was that during this time, we could not receive lab results.
The point-to-point approach previously used at Mercy made it very difficult to identify interface issues. With NeoIntegrate, we can now easily pinpoint and resolve issues immediately. With the interface engine approach, we are often up and running again in five to ten minutes. Simply put, the potential for any unresolved connectivity problems between our MEDITECH system and other applications have been eliminated.
One of the many great features of NeoIntegrate is its alerting functionality. With the configurable alerts, we can match the alerting thresholds and escalation to Mercy’s specific workflow requirements. NeoIntegrate enables flexibility and alignment to meet our varying healthcare interface requirements in the most productive manner possible.
With respect to any future interfacing challenges, I absolutely believe that by using NeoIntegrate to connect our systems, we are positioned to accomplish anything our internal or external customers might need. NeoIntegrate is a powerful, affordable solution for any hospital, no matter what applications need to be connected. Perhaps, best of all, we now deploy interfaces on Mercy’s timetable rather than the timetable of our application vendors.”
About NeoIntegrate:
NeoIntegrate supports the full life-cycle on healthcare interface development. Learn more about NeoIntegrate.
| Attachment | Size |
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| Mercy-Hospital-MEDITECH-HL7-NeoTool.pdf | 87.26 KB |