Chicago's Rush University Medical Center encompasses a 676-bed hospital serving adults and children, the 128-bed Rush Oak Park Hospital, Rush University Medical Group, and Rush University.  A thriving center for basic and clinical research, Rush has been developing innovative and often life-saving treatments for more than 170 years.

In preparation for its large-scale implementation of the Epic software platform, Rush made the strategic decision to migrate its extensive inventory of HL7 interfaces from eGate to Ensemble.  Rush wanted to tackle this ambitious project with internal resources, but its IT staff had no prior experience with the InterSystems technology platform.  So they turned to J2 to provide best-practices consulting to its developers and engineers.

With a combination of strategy consultations, hands-on exercises, code samples, and document templates, J2 was able to help the Rush team achieve self-sufficiency with Ensemble in a very short time frame.  Areas of focus included:

• Ensemble production architecture, including code organization, optimization, and reuse
• HL7 interface development strategies, including testing methodologies and troubleshooting
• Ensemble monitoring, alerts, error handling, and reporting

Our engagement with Rush is an excellent example of how J2 can help a well-staffed IT organization gain the necessary expertise and momentum to take full ownership of its Ensemble infrastructure without the need for ongoing staff augmentation.