A large communications company reduces project risk and delay

This large communications company provides a range of products and services— including communications, networked IT and consultancy services—to address the needs of major corporations, governments and multisite global organizations. It also brings special expertise to customer groups with focused practices by redesigning processes to yield breakthrough yet cost-effective care models.

The communications company is now bringing this expertise and innovation to an initiative aimed at transforming patient care records so that wherever and whenever a patient seeks care within a major national health network, medical providers will have secure access to the information necessary for diagnosis and care. A key part of this initiative was developing an electronic summary care record (SCR) available to authorized staff anywhere in the nation. Users will include personnel in every care setting, including 300 hospitals and offices for approximately 30,000 general practitioners.

More than access

For the national healthcare organization, efficiency and responsiveness are top priorities, as well as greater agility and flexibility to provide for and revise new requirements. The initiative is not just a project to improve access to patient records; it is a transformation of the way citizens, government and health providers interact to offer the highest quality healthcare in a safe, effective manner.

“Behind the screens” challenge

When the initiative is complete, administrative and medical staff will have a simple interface supported by an integration of diverse applications, data, communications and messaging protocols. With these different parts of the system infrastructure, the communications company took a best-of-breed approach.

The company selected two partners to provide the applications that address various care settings: one partner for acute trusts and one for community and mental health trusts. Further, the communications company chose to implement Sun Microsystems SeeBeyond middleware technology.

The communications company was tasked with making the connections among the systems flexible by allowing each vendor to interface in its own way. With flexibility, however, came greater complexity.

In addition to tailored integration work, the communications company had to test transaction paths that could contain multiple interfaces. Regression testing was required throughout the project because different applications were rolling out at various times.

This “behind the screens” challenge became as critical as the delivery of each screen itself. “We had a major challenge to streamline our processes in order to hit our targets and have a credible audit trail,” says the technical lead for the communications company. “We had to be more efficient, but the testing requirements were greater because of more connections and the need to help ensure accuracy because of the nature of personal health data.”

The communications company turned to IBM to deliver an automated framework for functional and regression testing using IBM® Rational® Test Workbench software. The company knew that Rational Test Workbench software was being successfully used in other highly complex environments. What it also experienced was innovation and responsiveness in the implementation.

Taking out cost with simulation

With integration testing, not all parts of a process and the underlying infrastructure may be available when a test is scheduled. There are two main causes for the lack of availability.

One, the interfaced system may be down for maintenance or a third party may own it.
Two, there may be a cost for using programs and connections for testing purposes. This occurs with some enterprise applications and when systems are under outsourced management. Some outsource contracts charge access fees for use outside of release schedules, and these costs may not be included in the project or test budget.

The communications company faced the different challenge of coordinating testing deadlines with installing the network connection. The health organization’s care records system operates across a complex infrastructure of communications, messaging and applications. Running the network from the data center and installing full licenses of the enterprise service bus (ESB) complicated matters. The project timeline became dependent on factors outside the development and testing activities.

Rational software offered a solution with simulation. The Rational Test Workbench software heterogeneous systems led to the invention of an automated virtual application, an industry first. This function was used to create a lightweight alternative to actual systems. Simulation allowed the communications company to automate tests for the interfaces with full functionality.

The company valued the code-free environment for virtual application development, ensuring that it could be used across the project lifecycle without regard to additional expense. “With Rational Test Workbench software, we not only avoided the cost of the physical infrastructure but also the high labor costs. It is time-consuming to have ongoing maintenance of code related to manual virtual applications, and it requires specific skills.”

Simulation also provided the ability to “pop in” test assets according to test schedules rather than system availability. IBM advocates created simulation assets as part of test suites to virtually eliminate slipped project milestones because of creeping testing cycles.

Standards that aren’t standardized

Health Level 7 (HL7) messaging standards are commonly accepted guidelines for exchanging, integrating, sharing and retrieving electronic health information. They standardize language, structure and data types. The communications company was testing HL7 V3 but wanted a tool to also test HL7 V2.

The unexpected finding was that the HL7 standards had been changed to accommodate various implementations. Rational Test Workbench software handles both the standards and the customized versions of the messages. The IBM Rational software already has built in plug-ins for several industry-specific messaging, helping to enable testing with both HL7 V2 and HL7 V3 amongst many others.

The next connection

System deployment involves rolling out various patient scenarios. The first two require developing and testing an extensive test data pack. The third requires the ability to replace the patient data with different values. All three scenarios were covered efficiently and effectively with the Rational Test Workbench product.

Further, the communications company expects to extend the testing framework beyond the functional and system testing phases into performance testing as well. The ease of uplifting a functional test case into a performance test is already proving very beneficial.

For more information

To learn more about IBM Rational software, please contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit the following website: ibm.com/rational , or ibm.com/software/rational/offerings/quality

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