COVID-19 OLIS Integration

MDI Solutions has developed a laboratory interface between the Mount Sinai Hospital (MSH) SCC Soft laboratory information system and multiple COVID-19 testing locations; for eventual upload of Results data to the Ontario Laboratories Information System (OLIS) provincial registry using their integration engine, MD Link™.

MSH was designated as a COVID-19 Assessment Centre by the Ontario Ministry of Health and responsible for processing specimens from multiple external testing sites.  MSH currently utilizes a third-party interface engine but needed specific and unique functionality to query OLIS for COVID Orders.  The MDI interface team reviewed workflow requirements with MSH and OLIS, and used MD Link to set up a query/retrieve transport to process the Orders via web services.  A complicating parameter of the integration found that each query could only accommodate 50 Orders and a ‘continuous pointer’ was included with the response from the OLIS PCR (Provincial Client Registry) when there were more than 50 Orders waiting to be processed.  The interface had to be designed with a separate ‘loop-back’ technique to ensure that Orders were processed in sequence and the query repeated until all outstanding Orders were received.  MDI has successfully deployed the interface to support 16 sites and are working on additional locations.

Mount Sinai Hospital’s (www.mountsinai.on.ca) clinical areas of focus include women’s and infants’ health, emergency medicine, cancer, complex orthopaedics, palliative care, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, geriatrics, and arthritis and autoimmune disease.  Mount Sinai has been designated with Exemplary Standing from Accreditation Canada, and is the only hospital in Canada to receive Magnet® recognition for nursing excellence and patient care.