LUXITH G.I.E. Leverages Mirth Connect to Maintain Seamless Interoperability Across Luxembourg
LUXITH G.I.E. provides shared IT services, software, and infrastructure for its members, who are general and specialty hospitals and diagnostics centers in Luxembourg. LUXITH G.I.E. is the national IT unit of the Federation of Luxembourg Hospitals (FHL).
Client Profile
LUXITH G.I.E. provides shared IT services, software, and infrastructure for its members, who are general and specialty hospitals and diagnostics centers in Luxembourg. LUXITH G.I.E. is the national IT unit of the Federation of Luxembourg Hospitals (FHL).
LUXITH G.I.E. and four other hospitals have been Mirth Connect clients since 2016. They have consolidated their Mirth Connect licenses to become a national contract under the Platinum license and added a fifth hospital.
NextGen Healthcare Solutions
- Mirth® Connect by NextGen Healthcare (Platinum)
“We leveraged Mirth Connect to centralize data generated from breast cancer screenings and provide clear and open communication between the healthcare actors. We are the single point of contact for facilitating interoperability efforts.”
Géraldine Vidou, Services Manager, Interoperability and Development
LUXITH G.I.E.Maintain seamless interoperability
Luxembourg’s healthcare community relies on LUXITH G.I.E. to provide various IT services and software infrastructure to ensure effective patient data exchange between hospitals, health centers, labs, the national laboratory, and the nation’s Ministry of Health. Hospitals have been using Mirth Connect as far back as 2016 to send documents to the nation’s health-shared record, as well as centralize and dispatch data to other applications used by various healthcare actors (organizations).
Mirth Connect was used to manage data exchange related to a breast cancer screening program organized by four hospitals and the Ministry of Health. The data consisted of patient appointments and protocols pertaining to breast images.
“We leveraged Mirth Connect to centralize the exchange of data generated from breast cancer screenings and provide clear and open communication between the various healthcare actors,” said Géraldine Vidou, services manager, interoperability and development at LUXITH G.I.E. “We are the single point of contact for facilitating interoperability efforts.”
Streamline connections between hospitals and the Ministry of Health
The Ministry of Health mails out announcements to women in the 50–75 age range, inviting them to participate in a bi-annual breast cancer screening program. They can call and make an appointment at one of four hospitals.
The data generated from these calls flows to the Ministry of Health via Mirth Connect to confirm their eligibility for screenings and maintain records of women who have made appointments and which hospital they will be visiting.
When the patient goes to a hospital for a breast cancer screening, the radiologist compares the new images with ones from previous exams over the last two years. With the patient’s consent, their information is shared between the hospitals and the Ministry of Health. It doesn’t matter where the patient had the previous screening exams. The information is compiled together to ensure providers have access to current and reliable health data, where previously, it might have been siloed within a single hospital or health center.
Mirth Connect license consolidation—a national contract
For a time, hospitals were individually licensed to use Mirth Connect at various licenses—Gold, Silver, and Platinum. When they agreed to consolidate licenses, they all chose the Platinum. This was the best fit because of the cluster infrastructure LUXITH G.I.E. worked with along with the hospitals. They also had access to interoperability tools, professional services, training, and technical support.
With Platinum, LUXITH G.I.E. has Mirth Connect set up in a cluster—one primary/active instance and a secondary/passive instance so there isn’t a single point of failure. The Advanced Clustering extension included with the Platinum license allows them to synchronize the two instances for the secondary to pick up and continue processing data.
“We upgraded our infrastructure last year because we are providing more support for hospitals in the areas of data transmission and communication with the different healthcare actors,” said Géraldine. “With NextGen Healthcare, we could ensure our services are available for them every moment of the day.”
The national contract allows the big hospitals and specified health centers to benefit from solutions and services available through the Platinum license. For example, a dedicated radiotherapy center can improve its health information exchange capabilities through the national license in the same manner as a larger hospital.
Assurance of security
“We improved our security by encrypting the flow of data between us, the hospitals, and other healthcare actors because NextGen Healthcare provides the support to implement encrypted communication,” said Géraldine. “When a new flow with a hospital is made for exchanging data, it must be secured and encrypted.”
The flexibility of Mirth Connect allows LUXITH G.I.E. to exchange health data with hospitals that use different applications, data formats, and protocols.
“We say give us the data, and we will prepare it in the format required by any particular healthcare actor,” said Géraldine. “Healthcare facilities, including laboratories, and the Ministry of Health that work with us can benefit from our flexibility to ensure the health data meets their standards and is useful to their providers.”