Implementing Two Interoperable PHINMS Rnr Hubs to Support Laboratory Data Exchange

PHLIP, the Public Health Laboratory Interoperability Project, surfaced from the laboratory community with the mission to address the need to exchange laboratory orders and results electronically.  As the PHLIP initiative matures, many more data exchange partners are expected to participate and apply the standardized content and message structure developed through the PHLIP workgroups.  To exchange data between these partners, a direct send PHINMS connection is established between each organization.  Although Direct Send is a feasible, secure method of exchanging data, the addition of each new node to the community results in exponential growth of direct connections and maintenance.

 Under the direction of the PHLIP steering committee, a pilot project was established to document the requirements for centralized data exchange to meet the growing data exchange needs of the PHLIP community.  The requirements pointed to the establishment of two interoperable Route not Read (RnR) hubs.  The established RnR workgroup developed a timeline to implement two RnR hubs, one at the Florida Department of Health and one at the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory.  The move towards utilizing a multi-hub architecture will reduce the overhead of the Direct Send model by reducing the number of connections for intercommunication of nodes, ease the impact of firewall rules when connecting to trading partners and will make maintenance tasks simpler, such as certificate management.  Dual interoperability techniques were developed during the project, one of these solutions is a web services approach to connect the two hubs.  Web Services is the basis of NHIN’s connectivity strategy, so the use of this interoperability technique will position the PHLIP group to take advantage of and participate in national network activity.

 This presentation will outline the accomplishments by both Nebraska and Florida to deploy these  hubs, and the teams approach to collaboration on information exchange technology, standards, and interoperability.