Heron Technology Forms Application Partnership with InterSystems

InterSystems Ensemble-based Patient Administration System (PAS) - the
Foundation for Computerization, Connected Healthcare in Developing Countries

July 17, 2008, Markham, Ontario, Canada: Heron Technology Corp. announces that the company has signed an Application Partner Agreement with InterSystems Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Heron will offer the InterSystems Ensemble® rapid integration platform with Heron’s COMPASS Patient Administration System (PAS) software suite, which is operational in Canada, Jamaica, and other Caribbean countries. The combined technologies will enable developing countries to move forward on the road to connected healthcare.

World Health Organization Mandates Computerization in Developing Countries

Heron specializes in health Information and Communications Technology (ICT) solutions for developing countries. Implementing the Ensemble-based COMPASS PAS is the first step for healthcare providers in these developing countries to gather the information needed to meet the requirements of the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Metrics Network (HMN) initiative. Recognizing that every country must gather and centralize patient data in order to prevent the spread of disease and, possibly, pandemics, the WHO has mandated that developing countries must computerize their health systems in order to qualify to continue receiving aid from some public and private donors worldwide.

The Ensemble-based COMPASS PAS enables the first critical move towards achieving computerization according to established WHO guidelines, and to building a unique patient identifier (UPI) for every country’s citizens over time. Currently, patient data in these developing countries is maintained at individual hospital/clinic locations, almost always in manual paper-based forms. The PAS automates the entire registration process, making it easy to gather required information including patient demographics, insurance-related facts and any available clinical data about each patient. Underlying this registration and administration functionality, Ensemble provides the connectivity needed to integrate information flowing from individual hospitals and clinics to a central site such as a Ministry of Health (MOH) or Regional Health Authority (RHA). As a result, data can be easily aggregated and is accessible to address patient management issues and to enable research initiatives.

On the Road to Connected Healthcare

Used worldwide to enable connected healthcare projects, the Ensemble rapid integration platform provides the optimal technology foundation for deploying the COMPASS PAS countrywide. With the high performance, SQL-compliant InterSystems CACHÉ object database at its core, Ensemble offers the massive scalability needed to easily manage thousands of simultaneous users and terabytes of data across the enterprise and provide the foundation for connectivity within individual organizations and among applications and data repositories residing in multiple locations.
In addition to supporting information and application integration, Ensemble delivers the rapid application development capabilities developers need to quickly create Web applications. Ensemble also benefits transaction processing applications by providing outstanding performance, real-time data analytics, and the robust reliability required by Heron in large national health ICT implementations.

The Ensemble-based PAS is ideal for identifying, gathering and integrating patient data in developing countries in the most cost-effective and easily sustainable way. And, the software suite running on the Ensemble platform provides the optimal infrastructure for future disease tracking, auditability and healthcare reporting.

About InterSystems

InterSystems Corporation is a global software technology leader with headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and offices in 22 countries. InterSystems provides innovative products that enable fast development, deployment, and integration of enterprise-class applications. InterSystems CACHÉ® is a high performance object database that makes applications faster and more scalable. InterSystems Ensemble® is a rapid integration platform that enriches applications with new functionality, and makes them connectable. Ensemble has been named #1 interface engine by KLAS for two consecutive years. InterSystems HealthShare™ is a platform that enables the fastest creation of an Electronic Health Record for regional or national health information exchange. For more information please visit www.InterSystems.com

About Heron Technology Corp

Headquartered in Markham, Ontario, Canada, Heron provides cost-effective application software solutions for hospitals in both the developed and developing countries. Heron introduced its Patient Administration System (PAS) in Canada in 1990, and the company’s experience in developing countries started in 1995 when Heron won an international Request For Proposal (RFP) and was selected by the Jamaica Ministry of Health (JMOH) to provide the PAS for the public hospitals of that country. For more information please visit www.herontech.com

Heron Leads the Way in Developing e-Surveillance

Working closely with the JMOH and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Heron developed the world’s first national Injury e-Surveillance System in 1998. According to Yvette Holder, CDC, “the Jamaica Injury Surveillance System (JISS)/PAS is, to the best of my knowledge, the first, and probably still the only fully computerized wide-area networked national surveillance system in the Western Hemisphere.” The CDC, in an extensive analysis of the Heron JISS/PAS, observed that “The system could also be a model for other developing and developed countries.”

Heron PAS Recognized by WHO/PAHO (Pan American Health Organization)

Reflecting the international prominence that the Heron PAS/JISS has achieved, the WHO/PAHO has on many occasions invited key personnel from the JMOH to speak about its success. At the WHO (World Health Organization)-led ‘World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention’ launched in Paris, France, for example, Dr. Elizabeth Ward, Director of Disease Prevention and Control, JMOH, provided insights into the results of the PAS implementation. “It is nice that the WHO has singled us out and it is really good for Jamaica that WHO has recognized that we are taking road accident injuries and injury epidemiology very seriously" she noted. “Elaborating on the JISS, which has brought worldwide attention to Jamaica … we were looking at the data outside of obstetrics and we saw that injuries were the second leading cause of admission to hospitals nationwide” she pointed out.

The distributed hospital/clinic-based patient databases in Jamaica currently contain valuable information on over one million patients. The PAS provides the first step in the desired move to an Electronic Health Record (EHR) that is being encouraged by the WHO HMN initiative. The Heron PAS/JISS is setting the standard in developing countries in national e-Surveillance (Injury) health informatics.

With the implementation of the STARLIMS® Clinical Laboratory module at the JMOH, system integration has become a critical concern. As a certified InterSystems application partner, Heron offers an integration solution to other software applications by using the next-generation Ensemble rapid integration platform. Ensemble-enriched applications can connect with multiple systems and processes, through a wide range of architectures, protocols and APIs. As a result, Heron is well positioned to offer the benefits of top-tier integration via Ensemble to developing countries on a global basis.

Editorial Contacts: