Mount Sinai Health System has selected Cambridge, Mass.-based InterSystems HealthShare as its interoperability platform for long-term growth.

Officials say HealthShare will also support Mount Sinai’s objectives to participate in government programs and value-based contracts to improve care quality, availability, and efficiency.

Mount Sinai is an integrated healthcare system providing care both locally and globally. Encompassing the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and seven hospital campuses in the New York metropolitan area, as well as a large, regional ambulatory footprint, Mount Sinai is recognized for excellence in research, patient care,and education across a range of specialties.

"InterSystems has worked with us as a partner, helping us achieve our strategic objectives without disrupting the technology investments we have in place," said Donny Patel, director of interoperability at Mount Sinai, in a news release. "Having HealthShare as our strategic interoperability platform is not only vital as we expand our footprint, but it will also help us drive innovation in community engagement and more coordinated care."

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As reimbursement models evolve, healthcare providers are increasingly consolidating into larger integrated delivery networks, hoping to achieve economies of scale and operating efficiency. But that consolidation has become more difficult because providers have a variety of information systems in place, many of which are mission-critical; bringing together these systems and the vital information they contain is a daunting task, InterSystems executives point out.

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The need to gather data and share it across an expanding spectrum of care providers has grown, along with current efforts to increase availability of home care, community-based interventions and behavioral health resources, they write. This need has accelerated sharply with recent government programs centered around care delivery reform.

InterSystems describes HealthShare as a health informatics platform with tools to enable interoperability across multiple systems and data formats, making it possible to capture, share, understand, and act on large volumes of structured and unstructured health information. The platform is used by private hospitals and health systems, regional and statewide health information exchanges, and entire nations to achieve more coordinated, more connected care.

"Organizations that have a robust, scalable interoperability platform can quickly and effectively onboard a new acquisition on a different EHR system," said Joe DeSantis, vice president of HealthShare Platforms for InterSystems, in a statement. "Having a unified and integrated information network in a consolidated healthcare organization is a huge strategic advantage, further enabling the organization to meet the objectives of value-based care delivery and care system reform."