IBM Data Integration Software Supports Health Information Exchange

IBM (News - Alert) on Monday announced that its InfoSphere software and services have been selected by Shared Health, a public/private health information exchange (HIE) in the U.S., for a newly launched data exchange platform.

 

Shared Health Clinical Xchange provides healthcare providers and patients access to clinical information. The new data exchange platform, built on IBM’s information integration software, provides a Web-based system that supports millions of patients by merging key clinical data with administrative data from numerous sources and formats, said IBM.

 

Clinical Xchange is supported by Shared Health Clinical Health Record, which maintains a comprehensive view of a patient's medical history. The information is stored at Shared Health's data warehouse. These information resources are populated using IBM InfoSphere Information Server software platform, creating a common metadata repository that helps Shared Health reuse information, ensure data governance and develop new services more efficiently, said IBM.

 

“IBM’s Information Server helps staff understand the structure, content and quality of data sources to uncover missing, inaccurate and inconsistent data at the start of each data integration project. Shared Health then collects, integrates and transforms data from its partners and makes it available to providers,” said IBM.

 

The Information Server also helps Shared Health standardize the format of data from different sources and display a single complete record in a unified format. IBM software’s common metadata foundation allows Shared Health to share information collaboratively between business analysts and code developers to reduce project cycles and improve business results.

 

“This use of information is a focus of IBM's cross-company Information on Demand business strategy that enables organizations like Shared Health to use its information assets more effectively,” said IBM officials. “Increased information flow helps to better incorporate disparate internal and external information sources, providing a seamless flow of information regardless of format, platform or location.”

 

"We're in the business of integrating healthcare data and translating that data into actionable information," said Kevin Janes, senior solution architect, Shared Health, in a statement. "We chose IBM's InfoSphere software because it provides the scalable, robust integration that we need to achieve our goals and deliver immediate value to our customers."

 

"In the wake of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996, Public Law 104-191), it's critical to our business to know that data is secure and always available," Janes said. "The IBM data center provides the stringent security and disaster recovery features we need to protect patient data and make it available to providers when they need it."

 

Shared Health's system is hosted at an IBM data center operated by IBM Global Technology Services, said IBM.