CASE STUDY: Mission Community Hospital
MCH saw their average time per interface reduced drastically from a matter
of months to just days and in some cases, mere hours.
Challenge:
Mission Community Hospital faced serious challenges when they needed to go beyond sustaining their integration strategy to scaling it.
Solution:
Iguana®, along with customized training for the IT staff, was used to replace the existing open- source interface engine.
Results:
The user-friendly, easy to configure platform saved over $180,000 in implementation costs and months in man hours.
The Cost of “Free” Software
Mission Community Hospital (MCH) places a high value on connecting their healthcare data, systems and processes to seamlessly deliver integrated care to their patients. “Interoperability is a huge focus for our IT department,” states Vice President and CIO, Dustin Fennell. “We need to ensure our systems are no longer developed in silos. Our goal is to provide meaningful access to data that is captured.”
MCH had been using a “free” open-source interface engine they had downloaded to integrate their hospital information systems. Costing nearly $15,000 per interface in development dollars and taking anywhere between 8 to 12 weeks for their consultants to complete, the cost and time to production was clearly unsustainable for MCH. “I simply didn’t have the IT budget to hire a dedicated interface developer or to continue outsourcing this function,” explains Fennell.
These unsustainable costs, coupled with plans to greatly expand the number of their integrated services, compelled MCH to re-evaluate their integration strategy.
Senior Database Administrator, Yoseph Kassaye, who was tasked with evaluating potential replacement engines, was extremely thorough in his research. “I demoed every interface engine I could find,” recalls Kassaye. “In the end Iguana was the clear choice for us.”
“Iguana is one of the easiest pieces of software I have ever used during the course of my career,” describes Kassaye. “It is very user-friendly, easy to configure and makes troubleshooting interfaces painless.”
Iguana’s impact on development costs was quickly apparent. Depending on the complexity of the interface, MCH saw their average time per interface reduced drastically from a matter of months to just days and in some cases, mere hours. “Iguana has enabled me to include the task of developing interfaces into the responsibilities of my Sr. Database Administrator,” Fennell comments on the impact of Iguana. “This helps keep my IT budget lean and Iguana’s easy-to-use interface enables him to develop interfaces in addition to his regular duties.”
“Scalability is a huge issue for us as we expand our integration efforts,” states Fennell. “With Iguana, we have not only found a very cost-effective solution, but also one that will meet all our future needs.”
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About iNTERFACEWARE®
Since 1997, iNTERFACEWARE® has been on a mission to make healthcare data integration easier. Today, over 800 healthcare providers and software companies rely on iNTERFACEWARE’s software, services and support to exchange information between incompatible systems. iNTERFACEWARE’s Iguana® integration engine is used globally for rapid integration with EMRs, Billing Systems, Medical Devices, Supply by Chain Management, Health Information Exchanges and much more.
About Mission Community Hospital
Mission Community Hospital is a two-campus acute care non-profit hospital located in the San Fernando Valley in California. Mission Community, licensed for 85 medical/surgical beds, plus an additional 60 beds for psychiatric and emergency care, has been providing a full range of medical, surgical, psychiatric and emergency care for over 50 years. Fully accredited to participate in the Medicare and Medi-Cal programs, 94 percent of Mission Community’s services are provided to the beneficiaries of both programs.
For more information, please visit: http://www.mchonline.org