InterSystems IRIS for Health BYOL

What do you like best about the product?

I think that there are many advantages
1. the support is extraordinary, whether is a bug in the product or misconfiguration or even bugs in the infrastructure (kubernetes) the staff is always eager to help especially Tani and Ari
2. There is an option to create custom operation where you can enhance the FHIR capabilities, which was really helpful, since we needed it to support resource relationship and search options that are not FHIR native
3. the product has a built in ETL tool where you can build an entire ETL / ESB that allows advanced logic and transformation
4. our license includes the Fhir SQL builder, which enable you to configure sql views on top of the data without duplicating it, this allows you to query the data in an SQL language.

What do you dislike about the product?

1. backup process is a bit clumsy, you need to freeze and thaw the db for the backup
2. mirroring needs more adjustments like to mirror the security as well
3. there are some hidden features like enabling logs that needs to be broadcast

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

We were require to implement FHIR as part of a regulation law, and InterSystems IRIS for Health was the best fit for us, since it allows customization of the build in operations and it has built in features that allow us do transform the data on route

What do you like best about the product?

I appreciate how the UI is very intuitive, meaning it's easy to navigate and visually pleasing. The new UI is great because I am able to see the data transformations and rules now while viewing the production configuration page. I think this aids in interface overview. I find it easy to build interfaces on here and manage them. Also, anytime I have issues, their tech services team is really helpful.

What do you dislike about the product?

While the new UX is really helpful for viewing big picture stuff in the production configuration page, I generally find it more difficult to navigate.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

The greatest benefit of IRIS for Health is being able to do so much from the System Management Portal. other applications don't give users this kind of power when building and managing interfaces.

What do you like best about the product?

Iris for health is a strong has a really really strong DB engine with a powerful and fast database. It is really robust, it always starts or at least gives you the right hint on what isn't working. It's versatile thanks to its multiaccess model and it is really really fast.
Moreover the "for Health" edition gives you a lot of classes to manage the usual messages and helps you to manage a wide range of standard protocols in healthcare like fihr, hl7 and so on.
The customer support is really fast, competent and helpful.

What do you dislike about the product?

what is missing is a good replication engine on mirror pair. The data are replicated, but the settings are saved on the local instance and are not replicated

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

its integration engine is really really powerful and you can write integrations with a lot of graphical help

What do you like best about the product?

As a developer and system administrator in the healthcare sector, I've been using the product for many years and I think the strengths of InterSystems IRIS for Health are it's robustness, performance and an easy to use,rich healthcare standards implementation (e.g. HL7 v2.x, DICOM).

What do you dislike about the product?

It requires a significant amount of effort to achieve a comfortable level of proficiency with the product. For beginners, the MUMPS legacy, together with object oriented concepts in ObjectScript (such as multiple inheritance), may be daunting. Though embedded Python, a recent addition, may alleviate this, the product roots are still very present.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

I've been successfully implementing the following in two medium sized (approx. 1000 beds) hospitals in Belgium using InterSystems IRIS for Health :

- patient demographic and admission/discharge/transfer data, transforming and filtering
- appointment data transforming and filtering, following patient consultation pathway
- document processing : route document (reports, results, ...) from various sources to document archive, and reference them in health records
- master file management and distribution (practitioners, procedures, locations, etc.)
- patient consultation registration workflow, mixing machine (kiosk) and human (desk) interactions
- interfacing with third party APIs (SOAP, REST)
- interfacing with medical devices (monitoring systems, DICOM modalities, ...)
- interfacing with legacy systems such as IBM DB2 database

What do you like best about the product?

I use IRIS for Health almost every day, and what I like most is how much it simplifies working with healthcare data. Things like HL7 and FHIR, which are usually a headache to deal with, are much easier here because the platform handles a lot of the heavy lifting.

It’s also great that everything you need is in one place — database, integration engine, message routing, and even analytics. Once you're familiar with the environment, it’s pretty straightforward to implement solutions. This really speeds up development and reduces back-and-forth between systems.

The customer support from InterSystems is generally responsive and helpful, especially when it comes to urgent production issues. They do take healthcare seriously, so you usually get solid answers.

For more technical or niche problems, the turnaround time can vary, and sometimes it feels like you’re waiting on engineering or digging through documentation yourself. There’s not as much community content or Stack Overflow presence compared to other platforms, so you're mostly relying on official channels. It would be great to see more real-world examples and quicker resolution on complex tickets.

What do you dislike about the product?

The main downside is the learning curve. If you’re new to IRIS or ObjectScript, it can feel unfamiliar and a bit old-school compared to more widely-used languages like Python or JavaScript. It takes time to get comfortable.

Setting up your first few productions or integrations can feel a bit overwhelming without the right guidance. Also, since it’s a licensed product, cost and access can be a concern — especially for smaller teams or if you're trying to build a quick prototype. More beginner-friendly examples and community support would really help ease adoption.

for more technical or niche problems, the turnaround time can vary, and sometimes it feels like you’re waiting on engineering or digging through documentation yourself. There’s not as much community content or Stack Overflow presence compared to other platforms, so you're mostly relying on official channels. It would be great to see more real-world examples and quicker resolution on complex tickets.

The built-in tools for message routing, transformations, and monitoring are very handy. You don’t need to use separate software for each function — it’s all there in one place. That said, the initial learning curve can slow you down a bit if you're new to the InterSystems way of doing things, but once you’re used to it, integration work becomes pretty smooth and repeatable.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

InterSystems IRIS for Health is solving one of the biggest challenges in healthcare IT — integrating multiple systems that all speak different data formats and protocols like HL7, FHIR, JSON, and XML. In a typical hospital environment, there are many moving parts: lab systems, electronic medical records (EMRs), pharmacy systems, radiology modules, and more. Each of these systems may use different standards or interfaces, making communication between them complex and time-consuming to manage.

IRIS for Health simplifies this by providing a unified platform with built-in capabilities for parsing, transforming, and routing healthcare messages. Instead of spending hours writing custom code or managing multiple third-party tools, we can quickly set up and maintain interfaces directly within IRIS. This reduces development overhead and increases consistency across systems.

Another major benefit is how IRIS centralizes our workflows. Traditionally, we’d rely on separate tools for database management, integration, scripting, and monitoring — but IRIS brings all of these into one environment. This not only streamlines our architecture but also improves traceability, troubleshooting, and overall system reliability.

From a productivity standpoint, it’s made a big difference. Tasks that used to take days can now be completed in hours, and the risk of human error is significantly lower. It’s also easier to scale and maintain over time. Overall, IRIS for Health enhances both the performance of our integrations and the efficiency of our development team.