Interoperability & Workflow Design
Integrate cleanly. Fit the clinical workflow.
FHIR/HL7 and EPR readiness plus swimlane workflow design — so your product slots into clinical systems safely and is actually used.
What you receive
From assessment to a safe design
- FHIR/HL7 conformance assessment
- EPR integration readiness
- Clinical workflow swimlanes
- Data-flow diagrams
- Discovery workshop
- Prioritised integration plan
The two halves of integration
Standards get you connected. Workflow gets you used.
Interoperability is often treated as a purely technical problem: pick a standard, map the fields, send the message. That half matters — but it is only half. The other half is whether your product fits the way clinicians and administrators already work. A device that produces a perfect HL7 message but forces a nurse to break their routine to act on it will be quietly abandoned, however conformant it is. We treat the standards and the workflow as a single design problem, because in practice they fail or succeed together.
On the technical side, the NHS estate is heterogeneous. Established systems frequently exchange data through HL7 v2 messaging, while newer interfaces and APIs lean on HL7 FHIR resources, and clinical terms are increasingly expressed in SNOMED CT. The right answer is rarely one standard for everything — it is the combination that matches the systems your product must actually talk to. Our explainer on FHIR versus HL7 sets out the distinction, and this service sits within our wider digital health and interoperability work.
How a discovery runs
From unknowns to a prioritised plan
- Confirm the targets. We identify the EPRs, devices and services your product must integrate with, and the data it needs to send and receive.
- Assess conformance. We review readiness against HL7 FHIR and HL7 v2, terminology binding to SNOMED CT, and the common integration patterns those systems expect.
- Map the clinical workflow. In a facilitated discovery workshop we draw the pathway as swimlanes — every role, hand-off and decision — and locate exactly where your product sits.
- Draw the data flows. We document how data moves between systems, where it transforms, and where it could be lost, duplicated or misread.
- Surface risks and gaps. Integration risks, safety touchpoints and workflow friction are recorded openly rather than discovered later in build.
- Prioritise the plan. You leave with a sequenced integration plan your engineering team or integration partner can act on.
Who we work with
For teams whose product has to live inside the NHS
This service suits digital-health and medical-device companies preparing to integrate with NHS systems, product teams who have an idea of the standards but not the clinical pathway, and organisations who want a safe, documented design before committing engineering effort. We work alongside your developers — we are the assessment and design partner, not a replacement for your build team.
- Digital-health vendors approaching first NHS integration
- Medical-device makers connecting to EPRs and clinical systems
- Product teams needing a workflow-validated design before build
- Organisations seeking a documented, defensible integration architecture
Integration that touches clinical decisions carries clinical-safety obligations. A discovery here feeds directly into your safety work — see how we handle clinical safety and risk.
Answers
Frequently asked questions
Which standards do you assess?
HL7 FHIR and HL7 v2, SNOMED CT, and common EPR integration patterns — assessing conformance and readiness for the systems your product must work with.
What is a discovery workshop?
A facilitated session that maps the clinical workflow around your product as swimlanes, surfaces integration points and risks, and produces a clear, prioritised plan.
Do you build the integration?
We focus on assessment, architecture review and safe design; we work alongside your engineering team or integration partner to deliver it.
Should we use FHIR or HL7 v2?
It depends on what you must connect to. Many NHS systems still rely on HL7 v2 messaging, while newer interfaces favour FHIR. We assess the targets your product needs to reach and recommend the standard — often both — that fits, rather than choosing on preference.
Why design the clinical workflow at all?
A technically perfect integration that disrupts how clinicians actually work goes unused. Swimlane mapping shows where your product sits in the real pathway, who touches it and when, so it fits the clinic rather than fighting it.
Book an interoperability discovery
Bring your integration challenge and we'll map a safe path.