Case study: UPMC partners for integration

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, like virtually all of its peers, was eager to create an interoperable infrastructure linking up all patient care information. The project was huge. UPMC is an integrated health system with 19 hospitals, almost 5,000 physicians and nearly 400 outpatient sites. These various sites were supported by a patchwork of EMRs and other clinical systems, which, though best of breed, didn't communicate with each other. At first, the health system build more than 600 different system interfaces, in an effort to unify all relevant patient care systems.

But over time, UPMC execs decided that rather than use a single integration vendor, they needed a best-of-breed integration vendor who would partner with them over the long term. The health system decided to partner with (and invest in) dbMotion, a healthcare information integration solutions vendor. Since then, UPMC has built a service-oriented architecture using an HL7 foundation which has achieved many of the organization's interoperability. Working in cooperation with dbMotion, UPMC also hopes to develop technology products which the partners can sell to other healthcare organizations.

To find out more about UPMC's implementation:
- read this HHN Most Wired piece

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Case study: U of Pittsburgh develops with vendors. Report