Background
Better is an international health technology company specialising in building advanced digital products and solutions for health and care organisations, regions, and countries.
The company aims to transform healthcare delivery by providing an open and interoperable platform and solutions that enhance patient care, improve clinical workflows, and enable seamless data sharing.
Better offers a range of products, including electronic health records (EHR), data integration, and clinical decision support systems. Their solutions are designed to empower healthcare providers, optimise clinical processes, and foster collaboration across various healthcare settings.
By leveraging innovative technology and adhering to industry standards like openEHR and HL7 FHIR, Better serves hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare institutions, as well as regions and countries, striving to improve healthcare outcomes and operational efficiency worldwide.
The Need
Better aimed to integrate its advanced health technology solutions with SystmOne Community to enhance the interoperability and efficiency of clinical data management within healthcare organisations. Despite having a robust platform, Better faced challenges in ensuring seamless integration with SystmOne, which is essential for comprehensive patient data handling and clinical workflow optimization.
The primary objective was to develop an integration API that could both read and write clinical information from the SystmOne system via the IM1 interface. This integration was crucial for supporting various clinical observation patterns, including coded observations with associated notes, unit values, and child components. Additionally, the integration needed to handle clinical encounters effectively.
Better’s goal was to enable healthcare providers to retrieve and post clinical data in a standardised format using a HL7 FHIR proxy via the IM1 interface. The API needed to support retrieval of encounters and observations for given patients, within specified date spans, and constrained to specific SNOMED CT codes. Moreover, sending data to SystmOne required structuring it in HL7 FHIR Bundles, ensuring that each observation resource contained references to associated encounters.
The integration aimed to streamline demand management, improve patient care delivery, and ensure robust compliance with healthcare regulations.
By achieving seamless interoperability with SystmOne, Better sought to enhance clinical workflows, foster better patient outcomes, and ultimately transform healthcare delivery.
The Solution
To address Better’s need for seamless integration with SystmOne, 6B executed a comprehensive project plan to develop the solution.
The project began with mobilisation, kickoff, and onboarding, ensuring all stakeholders were aligned. Development environments were set up, and project scaffolding was established to provide a robust foundation.
6B developed three critical services: one for displaying patient data as HL7 FHIR bundles containing observations and references to other resources, one for retrieving demographic data and consent data, and another for entering data into patient records, handling HL7 FHIR data as a bundle. These endpoints were crucial for ensuring seamless data exchange between Better’s systems and SystmOne.
The middleware development for SystmOne was a key component. 6B converted the patient record SystmOne IM1 data into standardised HL7 FHIR bundles, containing observation resources with references to other HL7 FHIR resources.
Additionally, incoming HL7 FHIR data, comprising bundles of Encounter and Observation, were mapped into the required XML format to enable updating of the patient record in SystmOne via IM1.
Authentication was implemented using an open source identity and access management solution, with a sandbox identity and access management solution provided by Better to manage secure access.
Through these efforts, 6B enabled Better to achieve the desired interoperability with SystmOne, enhancing clinical data management and optimising healthcare delivery processes.
The Impact
The successful implementation of the solution by 6B has just gone live, marking a significant milestone for Better.
Early feedback indicates that the integration with SystmOne is functioning seamlessly, allowing healthcare providers to efficiently manage and access patient data.
The new endpoints and middleware have streamlined data retrieval and entry processes, significantly reducing administrative burden and enhancing clinical workflows. Strong authentication has ensured secure and compliant access to patient records.
As a result, healthcare organisations using Better’s technology are experiencing improved data interoperability, which is expected to lead to better patient outcomes and more efficient healthcare delivery. This successful launch sets the stage for further innovations and broader implementation of the solution across the healthcare sector.
“We engaged with 6B to develop a reusable integration API for SystmOne. We were impressed by the depth of design, speed of development and support during UAT. We now have plans for additional development, beyond the original scope.”
– Darren Ransley, Managing Director UK & Ireland