Royal Salford integrates with Ensemble

Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust has implemented InterSystems‘ Ensemble integration engine, to consolidate and update more than 30 separate interfaces across the trust.

Salford Royal went out to tender in December last year after deciding that its existing integration was too inflexible to support the integration of new servers and systems.

The trust also wanted a test platform and back up configuration management option, so that new interfaces could be properly tested before going live, and support for the NHS interoperability toolkit.

InterSystems says Ensemble was installed and productive within half a day. However, not all the interfaces are fully live and full implementation will take around six months.

Philip Bell, head of development at the Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, told eHealth Insider: “The key benefits will be the resilience and additional processing power, plus the ability to provide new interfaces quickly; especially when ITK compliance is fully adopted.”

He added: “We plan to build a flexible, resilient interface with the ability to plug in new interfaces rapidly.

"Ensemble will give us greater control of the integration process with advanced monitoring and alerting, which could be used for business processes as well as support.”

Ultimately, the integration engine will support the sharing of patient and management information between trust departments, helping to reduce costs and duplication.