CAMBRIDGE, Mass.June 22, 2006InterSystems Corporation's president and CEO Phillip T. (Terry) Ragon was called upon as an expert witness in health information technology to testify before the U.S. Senate.
The testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation took place on June 21. Ragon is the founder and CEO of InterSystems Corporation, a leading provider of database and integration software technologies.
In written testimony, Ragon discussed the availability of new technology that makes it easier to introduce electronic patient records (EPRs) and to connect them in regional and national entities.
He cited InterSystems technology implementation successes at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense and Kaiser Permanente as clear examples that the choice of technology is critically important and that "evolution works better than revolution" in healthcare IT.
Ragon also outlined a new vision for introducing EPRs in which the medical record application is built as a "composite application" that communicates with already installed departmental systems, enabling organizations to avoid "rip and replace" of existing systems. Ragon further testified that, "This need for interoperability within a hospital to share information among departments is strikingly similar to the emerging need to share information between organizations. The same technology we built for connecting an organization and supporting composite applications is also being used to link organizations into regional and national entities." Ragon pointed to the use of InterSystems integration technology to implement a national electronic health record (EHR) in the Netherlands as evidence that "the technology to achieve regional and national EHRs exists today".
About InterSystems
For over 25 years, InterSystems Corporation has been a technology innovation leader in database and integration software. The CACH post-relational database and Ensemble rapid integration platform enable software developers in every industry sector to rapidly create, deploy and integrate high-performance applications. With world headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, InterSystems has offices in 20 countries and provides support to customers in 88 countries. For more information, visit www.InterSystems.com.
InterSystems is a leader in integration technology and the worlds #1 database provider in healthcare, with its products used by most major hospitals and labs, including Americas 10 best hospitals as rated by U.S. News and World Report.
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