Epic FHIR integration

The Scarborough Health Network (SHN) and Women’s College Hospital (WCH), Toronto, Ontario sign on with MDI Solutions to connect their Epic HIS to the Ocean eReferral Network, which allows healthcare providers to securely send electronic referrals in real-time to SHN and WCH while keeping patients informed.

Based on the successful OCEAN eReferral project completed earlier this year for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, MDI Solutions provided their integration engine software, MD Link, and interface development and support services to connect internal and external systems for the 8 facilities at SHN and Women’s College Hospital. As the Ocean eReferral system required data exchange using the HL7 FHIR standard and the HIS installed at both organizations is deployed using HL7 V2, MDI is using MD Link to connect the differing data formats.  Some of the FHIR to V2 interface development included:

• Create patient or match existing patient for new referrals into Epic
• Manage both discrete and non-discrete data in referral requests
• Process Provider add-on messages – text strings or file attachments
• Send status and booking updates from Epic to Ocean

Due to the complexity of the integration, the project also required Epic Bridges (Epic’s internal communication layer) expertise, so MDI assigned a Bridges-certified integration resources to the SHN project, who coordinated the interface workflow design and development to and from Epic, and assisted SHN staff with coordinating testing of the Epic clinical applications.  The eReferral project Go-Live’s are set for October, 2022.

Across their three hospitals and several community-based satellite sites, the Scarborough Health Network’s, www.shn.ca, programs and services are designed for the specific needs of the Scarborough community. They offer full-service emergency departments; diagnostic, surgery, rehabilitation, and geriatric care; as well as advanced birthing centres for moms, newborns, and growing families. They are leaders and partners in specialty mental health, cancer and kids’ care.

Women’s College Hospital, www.womenscollegehospital.ca, is a world leader in health for women, health equity and health system solutions – a hospital designed to keep people out of hospital. They are developing ground-breaking innovations that address issues related to population health, patient experience and system costs. They advocate for health equity, knowing that a healthy society requires a level playing field where everyone has access to timely, high quality, efficient and compassionate care.