For those not familiar with the healthcare interoperability space, you may not know that a major portion of health data exchange happens on open source software called OSS Mirth Connect. For many organizations, OSS Mirth Connect is like the “Intel Inside” of their healthcare interoperability efforts. OSS Mirth Connect was acquired a number of years ago by NextGen who continues to update and maintain the open source code. While there’s some uncertainty about what NextGen will do with OSS Mirth Connect post acquisition by Thoma Bravo, one thing that will likely continue is OSS Mirth Connect’s move to the cloud.
This shouldn’t come as any surprise given that everything in healthcare is moving to the cloud. OSS Mirth Connect and interoperability are no different. The good news for OSS Mirth Connect users is that it is quite simple to roll out OSS Mirth Connect on cloud services like Amazon’s AWS Marketplace. Innovar Healthcare has an easy OSS Mirth Connect one click install option available on the AWS Marketplace that makes it easy to leverage the templates that are maintained and updated by Innovar Healthcare. Of course, while it’s easy to install, there are some important things to consider as you move OSS Mirth Connect to the cloud.
First, it’s one thing to roll out OSS Mirth Connect in the cloud and it’s another thing to migrate 10 large OSS Mirth Connect instances to the cloud. There’s a lot of nuance involved in moving multiple OSS Mirth Connect instances to the cloud. This is a situation where you’re going to want to have a OSS Mirth Connect expert helping you ensure that everything gets migrated to the cloud properly and there’s no issues with the various instances.
Another thing to consider when it comes to moving OSS Mirth Connect to the cloud is ensuring that all of your OSS Mirth Connect plugins work properly. When you move to the cloud, it’s the perfect time to evaluate those plugins to know if they will work properly in the cloud. Plus, just like when you move homes in your personal life, it’s a great time to clean out your house and evaluate if you’re using the best options available. The beauty of open source is there are often multiple options available that do basically the same thing. As you move to the cloud, take a look at your plugins and see if there are other options out there that better suit your needs and may save you money.
One of the biggest challenges people have when moving to the cloud is security. Certainly many appropriately make the argument that public cloud options like AWS are more secure than on-premise solutions IF they’re configured properly. They are correct that public cloud can be more secure, but that’s a big “IF” in that statement. The good news for OSS Mirth Connect users is that AWS has well configured templates that include appropriate AWS security built into the one click install of OSS Mirth Connect. However, that’s just the install. Making sure you have a qualified team of OSS Mirth Connect experts that are ensuring OSS Mirth Connect is configured securely is key to avoiding security issues with your Mirth install on AWS.
Another advantage of OSS Mirth Connect in a cloud like AWS is that you can easily move OSS Mirth Connect from one place to the next. For example, in the cloud OSS Mirth Connect can easily auto scale to whatever interoperability demands your users require. When it comes to interoperability, we often see spikes in usage that need to be managed effectively. OSS Mirth Connect on AWS can easily scale to meet any of those needs unlike most on premise solutions.
Finally, you need to really ensure that you have OSS Mirth Connect experts available to support your install who understand all the problems that could occur. Support from qualified experts ensures that you have as little downtime as possible and if issues do happen, they’re resolved quickly. It’s not uncommon for a system like OSS Mirth Connect to have database corruption, unresponsive interfaces, Heap memory exhaustion, or run out of disk space. Not to mention issues from various configuration and settings that need to be understood and tweaked. Plus, OSS Mirth Connect can have tricky logic that may be written in the custom interfaces that needs expert help to be debugged. We all know how valuable fresh eyes can be when debugging issues. Make sure you have the right support to address any of these issues that come up.
There are a number of options to consider when it comes to support for OSS Mirth Connect. While some organizations are able to support OSS Mirth Connect in house, most OSS Mirth Connect users are also doing a dozen other things as part of their job. This makes it tough to stay up on the latest details on OSS Mirth Connect and how AWS works with OSS Mirth Connect and so they often have to look to outside experts for help. That’s why Innovar recently started offering OSS Mirth Connect Support on the AWS Marketplace. Innovar has three different plans available for organizations to get the expert help they need from people who spend their entire day supporting OSS Mirth Connect.
As interoperability moves to the cloud, make sure you understand all the intricacies of the choice. There are a lot of inherent advantages to moving OSS Mirth Connect to the cloud, but it also comes with its challenges. As you move to the cloud, make sure you’ve crossed all your t’s and dotted all your i’s in a way that you can enjoy the benefits of the cloud. Plus, make sure you have experts in your corner that can help when support is needed.
Want to learn more about what it takes to manage OSS Mirth Connect in the cloud on AWS effectively, check out the OSS Mirth Connect cloud services and support from Innovar Healthcare.
Innovar Healthcare is a proud sponsor of Healthcare Scene. Mirth is a registered trademark of Nextgen Healthcare and Innovar Healthcare is not affiliated with Nextgen Healthcare.
Glad to see more opportunities for cloud deployment. I believe Nextgen just launched an open source Mirth Connect AMI on the AWS Marketplace as well. Why would you recommend Innovar though? Seems smarter to cut out the middleman and deploy Mirth Connect directly through NextGen’s AWS offering.
Mike,
It’s good for people to have options to consider. They should compare what Innovar offers vs NextGen and they can decide. Some of the pros for Innovar is they’ve been doing it a while and worked with AWS to optimize it. Plus, there’s a lot of uncertainty with the Nextgen acquisition that has many wondering what their commitment to Mirth will be. Those are a few ideas, but I’m sure Innovar can offer more. I’m recommending that people take the time to look at all the options as they move to the cloud.
Agreed – the more options the better in health IT. Just seemed counterintuitive to leave out that the active developer of Mirth has an OSS AWS offering as well. As a user of Mirth for many years and an avid OSS fan, I think it’s important to consider supporting the companies that are actively updating and maintaining their open source software.
Mike,
Fair point. I just assumed that people using Mirth would know and evaluate that option.
Innovar has a well-established track record with Mirth Connect in the AWS cloud environment, with several years of development and support experience. In contrast, Nextgen has only recently started offering support for Mirth Connect on AWS, having previously maintained a stance against such support. Our presence in the AWS and on the AWS Marketplace has been consistent for a few years now, whereas Nextgen has just made their debut in the AWS Marketplace this year. Our perspective is that Nextgen’s version is a basic AMI and we believe that it is lacking the advanced features found in the Innovar version. Our team consists of some of the original Mirth employees, bringing unparalleled expertise in Mirth Connect when compared to the team at Nextgen. For comprehensive solutions and expertise in OSS Mirth Connect, Innovar is the preferred choice, surpassing even the current proprietors of the Mirth brand in stability and dedication to this product suite.