Need for Community Connections Drives Decision
Holland Hospital, a 209-bed hospital in Western Michigan that is nationally recognized for quality practices and exceptional patient care, chose Ensemble to address several integration challenges in an effort to continually improve patient care. Among those challenges were the needs to interconnect more systems across the hospital and to integrate with electronic medical record (EMR) systems at affiliated physician groups. Ensemble, which is used to develop and integrate mission-critical applications, leverage previous software investments through composite applications, and establish an enterprise service bus or SOA infrastructure, offered significant advantages over Holland Hospital's legacy integration platform.

"We wanted to add more interconnectivity internally as well as connect to physicians and multiple external organizations. Our previous platform didn't offer a good upgrade path for achieving our objectives," said Randy Paruch, Director of Information Systems.

After examining a variety of integration products including several standard interface engines and open source alternatives, the hospital selected InterSystems Ensemble. "Our developers found Ensemble easy to understand, easy to use and very straightforward to work with," Paruch said. "It's a very stable product and the creation of new interfaces is extremely fast... maybe half the time needed for development on the previous platform."

Holland Hospital has completely converted all legacy interfaces over to the Ensemble platform and has also connected the hospital's laboratory information system, radiology information system, and other internal applications to the hospital's hospital information system (HIS) and billing systems.

"We needed a system that could handle an expanding number of new connections and facilities and that's what we received with Ensemble," said Paruch. "We keep throwing more projects at this platform and it just keeps running. There has been no unscheduled downtime.

"We're also adding multiple interfaces to make care delivery as seamless and easy as possible for physicians," he continued. "Not only does this enable improved care delivery, but the easy connectivity means increased business opportunities for both our hospital and the physician groups with whom we work." The healthcare delivery network is currently using Ensemble to connect Holland Hospital's HIS with other EMR systems in use at several physician groups.

In addition to providing enterprise-wide integration, future plans may lead to Holland Hospital evaluating the InterSystems DeepSee™ business intelligence software to enable trends analysis and provide early warning of system problems.

"Healthcare providers like Holland Hospital are increasingly leveraging technology in innovative ways in order to support ongoing improvements in high-quality, cost-effective care delivery," said Paul Grabscheid, InterSystems Vice President of Strategic Planning. "We're focused on helping them reach their goals by providing integration and business intelligence solutions that grow with them as their needs change and expand."

About InterSystems
InterSystems is the worldwide leader in software for connected healthcare. With headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and offices in 23 countries, InterSystems provides advanced software technologies for breakthrough applications. InterSystems CACHÉ® is a high performance object database that makes applications faster and more scalable. InterSystems Ensemble® is a seamless platform for integration and the development of connected applications. InterSystems HealthShare™ is a platform that enables the fastest creation of an Electronic Health Record for regional or national health information exchange. InterSystems DeepSee™ is software that makes it possible to embed real-time business intelligence capabilities in transactional applications for better operational decisions.

InterSystems is the world's #1 vendor of database and integration technologies for healthcare applications. InterSystems products are used by thousands of hospitals and labs, including all 21 hospitals on the Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals as rated by U.S. News and World Report. For more information, visit InterSystems.com.

About Holland Hospital
Holland Hospital is the leading hospital in the West Michigan Lakeshore area, serving more than 150,000 residents within its primary service area. Our advanced technology, comprehensive services and compassionate care also make us the healthcare choice for thousands more throughout Ottawa and Allegan counties.

Holland Hospital is nationally recognized for quality practices and exceptional patient care with awards that include being named one of the nation's Top 100 Hospitals by Thomson Reuters, a Magnet designated hospital and being included for seven consecutive years as one of West Michigan's 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For. For additional information, please visit www.hollandhospital.org.