Medical and Pharmaceutical Information

Highlights

The objective of the project is to enable seamless information flow between different healthcare entities.
- A Context-Specific data mediator was developed to enable exchange of patient information between various healthcare agencies
- A mediator supports various proprietary and open healthcare data standards
- The system is currently being prepared for evaluation in Boston area prehospital and hospital systems.

About the Project

Fast and efficient exchange of clinical information between disparate healthcare systems can save lives and reduce healthcare costs. It is estimated that efficient information exchange and interoperability between different healthcare providers could result in a net benefit of $77.8 billion dollars. However, most hospital systems have been built to function in isolated environments with little or no electronic communication with external systems. The input and output of clinical information from hospital systems takes place manually and through paper documents, leading to delays and high information exchange costs. A major impediment to electronic exchange of information between different healthcare systems is the heterogeneous nature of the IT platforms and the diverse data models of their patient care records. Although there has been a drive towards standardization in the healthcare domain, the presence of several versions of competing and proprietary standards has only increased the complexity and cost of automated electronic data transfer between different healthcare systems.

We have developed a modular approach to information exchange between heterogeneous healthcare information systems using a context specific mediating schema. The system is currently being implemented as a web service, and will enable inter-hospital electronic communication to occur in an effective manner, without requiring expensive software upgrades and before large scale standards such as, HL7 version 3, are widely adopted.

Current Research

We are currently deploying the mediator based technology to conduct trial runs for information exchange between a Boston area hospital and prehospital agency. The mediator has been extended to support various properietary standards and open standards such as HL7 version 3.  

For more information, please contact us.