Powering Regional Diagnostic Efficiency with InterSystems Technology

NENC ICS needed to unlock diagnostic capacity across eight NHS Trusts—but fragmented systems and manual processes stood in the way.

With diagnostic data siloed in disparate systems and integration engines, the region lacked real-time visibility into referrals, appointments and capacity. Without a unified view, it was difficult to respond dynamically to demand, identify bottlenecks, or plan resources effectively.

NENC ICS needed a region-wide solution—without disrupting the existing systems already in place.

To meet this challenge, Answer Digital designed and delivered a centralised Referral and Booking Management (RBM) system powered by InterSystems Health Connect Cloud.

Together with NENC ICS and trust-based integration teams, we:

• Deployed a secure regional integration engine hosted on InterSystems Cloud
• Connected eight Trust Integration Engines using HL7 v2 interfaces
• Built a cloud-based data warehouse to store, transform and analyse diagnostic data
• Implemented robust pseudonymisation and patient matching logic to ensure privacy and accuracy
• Delivered eight custom dashboards showing referral trends, capacity, utilisation, turnaround times, and cross-boundary patient travel

This new platform provides real-time insights into services like MRI, CT and non-obstetric ultrasound, giving ICS leaders a single, trusted view of regional diagnostic activity.

InterSystems Health Connect Cloud was chosen for its scalability, healthcare-native architecture, and compatibility with a wide range of integration technologies.

Its flexibility allowed each trust to retain their preferred clinical systems (including InterSystems, Rhapsody and Mirth), while still contributing to a unified regional dataset. It also enabled real-time data ingestion and HL7 transformation—fueling analytics at scale.

Though still early in rollout, the impact is already clear:

• Increased diagnostic capacity — Bottlenecks can now be identified and addressed faster
• Improved visibility and control — ICS leaders can monitor referrals, turnaround times, and appointment conversions in near real-time
• Greater collaboration — Trusts can see where patients are crossing boundaries, encouraging mutual aid and shared accountability
• Scalable insights — Dashboards refresh hourly, and the architecture supports future growth, including predictive analytics and additional diagnostic modalities