Revolutionizing Newborn Screening:

Challenge

Streamlining Data Integration for Natus Medical Inc.

Background: In the United States, infants typically undergo newborn screening tests for a range of genetic, metabolic, and endocrine conditions within their first few days of life. Using just three tests - hearing, blood, and pulse oximetry - each State department of public health (DOH) can check for 30-80 different conditions. This not only aids in early detection and diagnosis for infants, but also helps in analyzing the health of the overall population.

Natus Medical Inc., through its Neometrics Division in New York, is a leader in newborn screening and data management. They partner closely with various State DOH’s, providing both laboratory and case management systems for newborn screening.

In 2005, Natus faced challenges with their data exchange processes. They were in search of a robust integration engine capable of facilitating HL7 data communication with a range of hospital information systems (HIS), electronic medical records (EMR), and laboratory information systems (LIS) across the country. Natus aimed to address specific challenges, including:

• Data Handling: They needed to support large scale, high volume, bidirectional HL7 data exchange with various clinical information systems used by hospitals in every State. An integration engine capable of supporting a variety of data exchange protocols as well as data validation was crucial.
• Scalability: Considering the mandatory newborn screenings taking place in hospitals across the U.S., Natus required a solution that would allow for swift deployment and rapid integration with hospitals, all while accommodating the unique requirements of each State DOH.
• Time Sensitivity: With only a short 48-hour window to conduct screening tests and review the results, real-time integration is crucial to streamline newborn screening operations and to ensure timely diagnosis and treatment.

Solution

Harnessing the Power of iNTERFACEWARE's Iguana for Seamless Integration

Recognizing its capabilities, the Neometrics Division chose iNTERFACEWARE's Iguana. Renowned for its adaptability, control, and data handling expertise, Iguana offered a transformative solution for Natus. This platform allowed Natus to design and tailor interfaces dedicated to newborn screening tests for State DOHs, marrying custom integration with swift deployment.

To meet the requirements of each partnering State DOH, Natus deploys a dedicated Iguana instance in either their cloud service (Azure), or directly on premise within the local State DOH environment. Iguana ensures bidirectional HL7 data flows between various hospital systems (like EHR, HIS, or LIS) and a dedicated State DOH screening database. 

When a hospital orders a lab test, they send two types of HL7v2 data: an ADT demographics message, and an ORM/OML order message. Iguana receives, parses, and validates this inbound data, and adds the relevant information to the dedicated State health department’s database. Once the test results are ready, Iguana retrieves the information from the database, and generates an ORU results message to be sent back to the requesting hospital.

Results

A New Era of Efficiency in Newborn Screening

The integration of Iguana led to significant improvements:

• Streamlined Operations: Standardized order and result message exchange, and modularized hospital interfaces in Iguana now expedite the onboarding of new State DOH integrations, simplifying newborn screening operations and reducing manual processes.
• Flexibility & Control: With Iguana, Natus can now tailor their integrations to meet the specific requirements of each State DOH, while ensuring that data is exchanged in accordance with each State’s individual security measures.
• Timely Interventions: The seamless flow of real-time data now ensures prompt diagnoses in newborns. This leads to faster medical responses, reduces the need for repeated tests, and results in fewer referrals.

Looking Ahead:

With a well established, robust data integration platform now in place, Natus is poised for future growth. They plan to continue scaling their Iguana implementation to support newborn screening initiatives across various State DOHs, adapting to each one's unique needs as their integration requirements evolve.