ProtoLink was asked by a manufacturer of medical infusion pumps to participate in the modernization of a system to collect information transmitted by their pumps, and to make that data available to both end users and other software systems within a medical facility.
To achieve the desired objectives, ProtoLink assisted with the design and development of software capable of securely communicating with the larger ecosystem through both Kafka messaging and TCP/IP sockets.
Several interface engines were developed to facilitate interoperability with other healthcare systems using messaging standards established by IHE International (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) with particular emphasis on Patient Care Device messaging.
The backend engines and services were written in C# targeting current versions of .NET and were designed to be deployed and run as Docker containers.
The configuration interface was delivered as a web application implemented primarily in Angular and Angular Material and designed to interact with a C# backend. Configuration data was managed and stored in a PostgreSQL database.
To aid with testing, ProtoLink also developed several test applications. One of these applications simulates multiple pumps transmitting status messages to the application under test. This application is capable of simulating tens of thousands of pumps being operated by simulated nurses. It also supports manual control of individual simulated pumps either through a user interface or through scripts, the latter to facilitate automated testing. Other test applications simulate the various end points that the application under test communicates with via IHE messaging.