Description of Session
The Open Health Information Mediator (OpenHIM) is an open-source software application designed to ease interoperability between disparate information systems by providing a single point of entry into the services of a health information exchange (HIE). It provides secure communications and data governance as well as support for routing, orchestrating, and translating requests as they flow between systems. It is used internationally in a range of different settings, including PEPFAR’s global DATIM reporting system and MomConnect, South Africa’s national pregnancy registry and health service planning initiative. The OpenHIM functions as the OpenHIE Interoperability Layer reference technology, receiving transactions from different information systems and HIE services and coordinating the interactions between them. In addition, it provides a framework for the development and use of mediation services to transform incoming and outgoing messages to a form that other system components expect, and to support business logic by orchestrating transaction flows. These services, called mediators, can be developed in a range of programming languages and published in code repositories to be reused and adapted by other implementations based on their needs. This session will introduce participants to the OpenHIE architecture, the role of the interoperability layer and other HIE components, and showcase the OpenHIM’s architecture, application and capabilities through real world use cases. The session will provide an opportunity for participants to learn about OpenHIE and how it can address a range of interoperability challenges, practical experience on setting up and configuring the OpenHIM, and developing, adapting and reusing custom mediators to address these challenges.
