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InterSystems HealthShare Supports National Healthcare Identifiers Service and Secure Messaging Delivery Standards

Announcement posted by InterSystems 11 Jan 2012

Mater Health Services’ electronic health record interface to the Australian Government’s Healthcare Identifiers Service one of the first to gain NEHTA accreditation

SYDNEY, Australia -- January 11, 2012 -- InterSystems Corporation today announced that it has provided software to healthcare organisations -- including InterSystems HealthShare™ to Queensland’s Mater Health Services -- to rapidly develop systems that support the Australian national Healthcare Identifiers Service and Secure Messaging Delivery standards.

InterSystems HealthShare is a strategic platform for healthcare informatics and the creation of an Electronic Health Record on a regional or national scale.

By supporting Australian connected healthcare services and standards, InterSystems is accelerating the delivery of systems under government electronic health record initiatives. Through compliance with Australian standards, InterSystems will also lower the cost of maintaining connected care systems.

Mater Health Services, which operates seven Mater hospitals in South-East Queensland, has already used HealthShare to develop an interface to the national Healthcare Identifiers Service. The interface was one of the first to gain accreditation under the Compliance, Conformance and Accreditation program operated by the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA).

Mater -- and other Australian InterSystems customers including SA Health -- can also now communicate with other healthcare providers using the Secure Messaging Delivery technical specification developed by NEHTA and published by Standards Australia.

Mater was the recipient of a Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) eHealth Site Grant from the Department of Health and Ageing. The grants are part of the federal government’s initiative to introduce electronic health records for the Australian population. All grant recipients for PCEHR projects need to support the national Health Identifiers Service and the Secure Messaging Delivery standards.

Mater’s Chief Information Officer Mal Thatcher said the Mater Shared Electronic Health Record (MSEHR) will ultimately integrate with and support the national PCEHR.

"The project will initially develop and implement a repository for obstetric information with access for maternity patients, internal clinicians and affiliated external healthcare providers," Mr Thatcher said.

HealthShare extends the capabilities of Mater’s existing InterSystems-supported Electronic Health Record. It connects over 95 clinical and patient administration systems at Mater and also provides message translation for the HL7 healthcare interoperability standard and permanent storage of HL7 messages.

By connecting to the national Health Identifiers Service operated by Medicare Australia, Mater will incorporate Healthcare Identifiers to its MSEHR as part of the development. As well as storing the clinical information submitted by patients, participating external providers and Mater, the repository will use Healthcare Identifiers in Mater’s exchange of information with other healthcare repositories. The use of Healthcare Identifiers will ensure that the information delivered is matched to the right person, at the right time, in the right place.

Mater’s Integration Specialist Andy Richards said InterSystems had been "incredibly supportive".

"We started the development for the Health Identifiers Service towards the end of 2010 and InterSystems developed something that not only works but is a better solution than we could have developed by ourselves," Mr Richards said.

With added support for the national Secure Messaging Delivery standards, HealthShare allows Mater to communicate with other healthcare providers regardless of their secure messaging systems.

"This is where InterSystems gives us an edge," Mr Richards said.

"One of the advantages HealthShare has given us is that we can create new interfaces quickly without having to rebuild interfaces to other systems."

"InterSystems is committed to providing healthcare organisations with solutions that accelerate the delivery and lower the cost of connected care systems and which support Australian services and standards," said Steve Garrington, Commercial Director for InterSystems. "We congratulate Mater on gaining accreditation for its Health Identifiers Service interface -- no doubt one of many more to come."

About InterSystems

InterSystems Corporation is a worldwide leader in breakthrough solutions for connected care with headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and offices in 23 countries.

InterSystems HealthShare™ is a strategic platform for healthcare informatics, and the creation of an Electronic Health Record on a regional or national scale. InterSystems TrakCare™ is a Web-based unified healthcare information system that rapidly provides the benefits of an Electronic Patient Record (TrakCare is not available in the United States). InterSystems DeepSee™ is software that makes it possible to embed real-time analytics capabilities in transactional applications. InterSystems CACH is the most widely-used database in clinical applications. InterSystems Ensemble is a seamless platform for integration and the development of connectable applications. For more information, visit InterSystems.com, www.youtube.com/InterSystemsCorp, www.facebook.com/InterSystems, or @InterSystems on Twitter.

About the Mater Shared Electronic Health Record

The Mater Shared Electronic Health Record (MSEHR) program will initially deliver an electronic alternative to the paper based Pregnancy Health Record currently used in Mater Mothers’ Hospitals. Incorporating existing Mater Provider Portals with a new Mater Patient Portal, MSEHR aims to improve patient care through the sharing of information between general practitioners, visiting medical officers, maternity patients and Mater Mothers’ Hospitals.