Corepoint

• Implementation went really well with an onsite visit to review what we currently have and how we could do those things with Corepoint. We built out some of the most difficult processes when they were on site.
• We implemented our Corepoint Integration Engine in preparation for an Epic EMR go live in 2009. Without Corepoint, it is difficult to imagine how we could have successfully navigated the many interfaces required for this Epic roll out. The Corepoint implementation and support teams were vital to our success. We now consider them strategic partners, not vendors. When faced with large changes to our systems, we often rely on their sound counsel.
• We utilized Corepoint professional services in converting our existing eGate interfaces. That process worked very well and we had a 100% successful go live with ZERO issues.

Cloverleaf

• The Unix/Linux version (the best and most stable versions) are tricky if you have little experience with application implementation in these environments.
• Certification is only an introduction to it, you need to work with the application for a couple years to become familiar with all of the abilities it offers.
• It does have a steep learning curve and training/certification is quite expensive. We manage by doing some of our own training and by establishing policies and procedures.

Rhapsody

• There are a lot of tools to utilize, so defining our standards was probably most difficult. I didn’t feel that there were best practices around how to perform certain functions and there were a lot of options.
• Simple development and implementation model. Could use better clustering support. No robust way to monitor and support multiple instances in a consolidated manner.
• Toughest part to implement was creating the inventory from the previous tool and attaching the data “owners.” We could get this same data from Rhapsody easily.

Mirth

• It is a pretty straightforward product and use is intuitive.
• It does not work with all platforms.
• Training helped with implementation.

Ensemble

• You are on your own with a proprietary language. The ramp up can be very painful as there aren’t very many best practices. There is a large network of developers on their forums, so if you can get a response it is usually helpful. When implementing HealthConnect from scratch, it is extremely important to have someone that has spearheaded more than one environment.
• The toughest part of implementing the engine, even though I was not directly involved, was setting up the application on the server. It took a consultant and one of our senior technical people to complete the setup. It is my understanding that Corepoint is much easier to install. That may have changed by now. I don’t know how it could be avoided. The next toughest part of the process was learning to navigate the user screens and learning the coding used to program the interfaces, which was not extremely difficult, but it took some time to master. Much of the user interface was not intuitive, which is what took time to navigate and learn. Things that made it easy were the integrated testing tool, the outstanding support team available to us, and how quickly an interface can be built.
• Reschedules around external constraints; utilized multiple namespaces to create staging environment, which used current data and compared it against the new process.