Monarch General Capabilities Overview EMPOWERING ENABLING CONNECTING

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1 Monarch General Capabilities Overview EMPOWERING ENABLING CONNECTING

2 Executive Summary Monarch is a data translation, interface engine and routing solution for enterprise and system owners. Whether your health care systems are legacy or new, Monarch can effortlessly bring interoperability to otherwise disparate systems. Monarch facilitates this by integrating legacy health care systems with emerging communication standards allowing them to meet mandated federal interoperability requirements without the need to migrate or replace existing systems. Monarch secures longitudinal health data by integrating EMR systems with Federal, State, Acute, Provider, Payer and other disparate, emerging and legacy systems.

3 Without new code development, Monarch can create and link disparate data formats and databases. It enables connectivity between systems becoming a critical component in the development of Health Information Exchange (HIE) frameworks. Monarch enables effective and efficient information sharing across enterprise boundaries. Message translation systems are an effective and efficient way to alleviate interoperability issues between medical systems. However, based on our experience, rigid solutions with pre-set capabilities cannot keep pace in an environment of dynamic requirements. Monarch was created to provide translation of messages, databases, protocols, and transmission methods in the most flexible manner possible. Monarch brings a proven record of connecting business objectives with performance results, offering accessibility and trust for providers and customers, while ensuring standards, privacy and security. Background Monarch is the commercial implementation of a data and protocol translation system that has been serving the US government and allies for over 15 years. The current system has been proven in hundreds of integration efforts supporting DOD, DHS, NSA, DIA, and many other government agencies. Monarch provides the Medical Interoperability to make communications between all systems in the network possible. This product creates a system of systems capable of interacting together without ever having to change any aspect of those systems.

4 System Description The philosophy and design of Monarch is centered on the idea of providing a flexible and powerful set of translation capabilities. To achieve this goal the system is based on a generic translation capability that relies on user defined input specifications to determine its operation. Since the core engine is independent of any particular translation requirement, solutions can be formed by changing the set of instructions given to the engine rather than modifying the software. A family of editors is provided to make modifying the operation of the system intuitive and quick. An overview of the Monarch components is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 -Monarch Graphical Editors By remaining generic, Monarch does not solve one particular translation problem, but provides the tools necessary to create solutions for a variety interoperability issues. Graphical Editors As depicted in Figure 1, the Monarch family of editors consists of three components. Each editor allows the operator to develop, adjust, and specify specific protocols, formats, and data translations for the Monarch engine to perform during execution. These editors are the Message Editor, Map Editor and Communications Path Editor. Message Editor The Message Editor allows the end user to perform the following functions in the configuration of the Monarch engine: Allows definition of message structure and content Messages can be built as binary, text, XML, as database queries or any combination of these Allows definition of message content rules Field lengths Content Delimiters Provides automatic generation of Message Specifications associated with database communications In addition to allowing the creation/editing of messages for translation, the message editor understands and enforces the concept of standards based messaging. The editor provides graphic queues as to which message specifications have been verified to be in compliance with published standards, such as X12, HL7, and others, and those specifications that are non-compliant. The output of the Message Editor is referred to as a Message Specification.

5 Map Editor The Map Editor is the point in the system where relationships between input and output Message Specifications are defined. This editor provides a graphical interface depicting the input message, or messages, and the associated output message(s), the user defined relationship between each field of the message and the associated data operations required to perform the requisite translations. The Map editor provides the following configuration information to the Monarch engine: Provides a graphical representation of the translation logic and operations Allows users the ability to create new translations and data relationships using an intuitive point and click interface Provides over 20 Data conversion Operators providing the following functionality Look-Up Tables/Data cross-reference Check Sums Key Word Searches (filters, matching) Date and Time conversion Mathematical Calculations Option to create own operators More The Map Editor utilizes the Message Specifications generated by the Message Editor to define both the input and output messages. The Map Editor produces an XML file referred to as a Message Map. The Message Map references the Message Specifications, Connections, and associated Operators to provide the Monarch engine with a reference for all aspects of data and format translation. Communication Path Editor The Communication Path allows the user to define all aspects of the final communication configuration required of the Monarch system. This configuration is based on the concept that any source or destination of data, regardless of physical or logical location within the network, is termed an External System. External Systems are configured with one or more Interfaces and associated messages supported on those Interfaces. Interfaces define the transport protocol utilized by the External System for communication. For each unique instance of an Interface the Monarch system will instantiate an instance of the required protocol type specifically for that External System. The Monarch system supports UDP, TCP, SMTP, Serial, Web Service, Web Server, several database and other Interfaces. Finally specific communications paths between External Systems are defined as Routes. Routes define the source and destination External Systems, specific Interfaces, supported Message Specifications, and the Message Map required to translate between the input and output messages. A single Route file can contain numerous External Systems each with one or more Interfaces.

6 Message Translation Engine The core of the Monarch system is a translation engine that operates on the specifications, which are in the form of XML files for consistency, portability, and readability, generated by the editors described above. As new input data is assigned to the routes of the configuration, the translation engine carries out all the operations specified in each mapping and forms any output messages as dictated by the message specifications. New translations can be developed through the use of the editors and require no new software development. Ancillary features of the Monarch system are data archival and operation status display capabilities. Archival data can be used to support after auditing or troubleshooting. The status displays provide the user a means to monitor the operation of the system and identify any erroneous activity. I/O Component This modular design, depicted in Figure 2 below, allows Monarch to utilize only those I/O capabilities required to perform a specific translation without the overhead of running all of the I/O interfaces. This significantly cuts down on processor overhead and creates an additional layer of passive security by eliminating the possibility that a specific, unused interface could be exploited, since no unused interfaces are ever created. This design also adds a significant amount of active security to the Monarch system. Monarch creates only those I/O instances, servers, connections required to perform the translations specified by the operator and requires unique instances of each interface for each new source of destination of data specified by the user. This specification process includes IP addresses that Monarch will accept data from or send data to, it can also include usernames and passwords, addresses allowed, servers allowed to connect or receive data, and other interface level non-repudiation mechanisms. Figure 2 I/O Module

7 Example Applications In the examples shown in Figure 3, Monarch provides system integration between disparate Health Information Systems that, alone, could not otherwise share information. In the first example, a lab system communicates with hospital systems to enhance the delivery of lab results to clinicians. The lab system receives patient registration and lab orders via Monarch, and when lab results are ready, routes results via Monarch back to the EHR. This example of ADT and clinical messaging is possible with the Monarch integration engine. Figure 3 Examples of Monarch s system integration between disparate health information systems In the second example, local physicians use the services of a private lab company. To expedite the orders and results process, the physician EMR s can electronically transmit lab orders via Monarch to the lab company. When lab results are completed, the results can be transmitted back to the physician EMR s via messages translated by the Monarch integration engine. Monarch can process and route any healthcare related message which enhances sharing of medical information between an unlimited number of healthcare providers. The unique and powerful capability of Monarch is its ability to communicate between systems using not only different message formats, but also different transmission mechanisms. This simultaneous protocol and message translation permits systems to communicate utilizing native message formats and protocols via minimal system configuration.

8 Summary Effective integration of electronic medical data cannot occur unless the information can be received, displayed, and acted upon. In order to act upon information it must be in a format that can be received and processed on end-user systems. These systems and message formats are constantly evolving. This evolution creates interoperability issues between systems and organizations. Our approach with Monarch is not to solve this problem organizationally but rather to provide the end-user a tool that can be applied to these types of interoperability issues. Monarch provides this capability by isolating the message translation engine from the graphical editors. Monarch is in use by the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security and several other US Government and Foreign National Agencies. Learn More Monarch brings unmatched interoperability to healthcare systems without significant updates or expense to healthcare providers. Our team is ready to bring you more than 20 years of integration and data interoperability experience and expertise. For more information, visit us at aegistg.com/technology-solutions/simulation-products/monarch. Please Contact Us: monarch@aegistg.com Copyright 2016 The AEgis Technologies Group Incorporated (AEgis). All rights reserved. 410 Jan Davis Drive Huntsville, AL