The InterSystems Corporation is boosting its presence in the British healthcare market with yet another implementation for the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

The Cambridge, Mass.-based vendor has announced that the InterSystems Ensemble rapid integration platform is now available to the North, Midlands and East of England (NME) Trusts. This follows earlier implementations with The London NHS Trust, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Plymouth ICT Shared Services, Peterborough Hospitals NHS Trust, Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust, Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust and east & North Herts NHS Trust.

"This agreement ... fits with our strategy to take advantage of new strategic solutions ... whilst maximizing the benefit that we can get from existing software products that are highly valued by the local trusts," said Phil Molyneux, CIO of NHS Yorkshire and the Humber, in a press release provided by InterSystems.

Delivered as the standard trust integration engine (TIE) by Falls Church, Va.-based CSC, the local system provider for NME, Ensemble will include pre-built and -tested interfaces for trust applications. In addition, the trusts will have the option of expanding Ensemble beyond the TIE to address other trust integration requirements. InterSystems officials will be working with CSC and other vendors to configure and test interfaces for CSC-hosted applications.

"Proven, comprehensive and extensible integration is vital to the success of the NPfIT program," said Mike Dyer, CSC's NHS technology officer. "Our new TIE initiative directly addresses the need to achieve a single view of a patient record and keep disparate systems synchronized."

Along with Ensemble, InterSystems offers CACHE, a high-performance object database designed to make applications faster and more scalable, and HealthShare, a platform that leverages existing applications to rapidly create regional or national electronic health records.

"InterSystems has always recognized the importance of the trusts' existing applications and of applying integration technology to deliver a more 'connected' healthcare system," said Graham Frost, InterSystems' managing director of UK business, "We are delighted that all trusts in the NME region now have the opportunity to implement Ensemble and take a positive step towards combining the best of new and existing systems."