A New Zealand developer early next month will introduce North American health care providers to a new version of its application integration software.
Rhapsody Integration Engine Version 1.2 from Orion Systems International Ltd., of Auckland, allows companies to coordinate and streamline the exchange of data between internal applications and those at external partners in a way that complies with federal HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations.
The Rhapsody engine takes messages in any format, from any source, manages formats and guarantees the delivery of messages to their correct destinations, according to officials.
A bevy of new features are included in 1.2 that enhance ease of use for IT staff and accelerate messaging speeds. For instance, a new automated audit trail archives all messages that pass through the server for future audit and review. The audit log provides detailed information about who is accessing the system and what is happening to messages. It also assists in compliance with security standards.
With Version 1.2, direct extensible style sheet messages are transformed to EDI (electronic data interchange) messages directly, without having to be converted into XML format first, which reduces mapping and transformation times. At the same time, Rhapsody is able to convert EDI and XML messages to PDF format for transmission as a fax or e-mail. This broadens the scope of uses to which Rhapsody can be applied, officials said.
The upgrade comes with a number of filters for processing HIPAA and X12 messages.
Filters for splitting interchange messages by functional group for routing and into single transactions for processing are also included, as is a filter for de-identifying names, addresses and reference identification from HIPAA messages for testing and debugging.
Orion, which has its U.S. headquarters in Los Angeles, is also announcing the launch of its Rhapsody HIPAA Validation service, powered by its integration engine. The free online service provides a place where health care staff can access the Rhapsody validation site, register and upload messages.
