New in HealthShare Health Connect 2024.2
This page describes the new features, enhancements, and other significant updates in the 2024.2 release of HealthShare® Health Connect, which is an continuous delivery (CD) release.
For other information you may wish to consider related to changes included in this release, see Known Issues and Notes. For a more exhaustive list of the changes included in this release, refer to the Upgrade ChecklistOpens in a new tab.
Release Information for 2024.2
The current release is 2024.2. The posting for 2024.2 is build 2024.2.0.247.1.
If you are running AIX OpenSSL 1.x, the posting is build 2024.2.0.247.1.
Healthcare Interoperability
HL7 DTL Generator
The HL7 DTL Generator is a new addition to the Productivity Toolkit intended to help users reduce time-to-value when either migrating from other vendors or building new DTLs.
Based on source and target message pairs, the DTL Generator creates a skeleton DTL with simple transformation logic for the interface engineer to validate and review for any missing more complex logic required. The HL7 DTL Generator surfaces message discrepancies that result in a transformation for the user to inform the final DTL. Once discrepancies are addressed, the HL7 DTL Generator allows the user to re-process the same batch of messages to validate the DTL and make necessary adjustments.
X12 Capabilities for Prior Authorization
In anticipation of the upcoming CMS0057 Prior Authorization requirements, support for additional schema packages include: HIPAA 4010, HIPAA 5010, and HIPAA 6020.
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HIPAA 4010
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HIPAA 5010 — Provides additional documents for health insurance exchanges, including 277CA, 278 Inquiry, 820hix, 837apD, 837apl, 837ApP, and 999.
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HIPAA 6020 — Provides prior authorization documents, including 275.
Additional product enhancements for X12 capabilities include support for long X12 segments when maximum string limits are reached and support for relational conditions embedded in the schema allowing validation rules to be applied on the segment/component level.
Improved FHIR SQL Builder Performance
Enhancements to FHIR data table indexing have improved the performance of the FHIR SQL Builder.
FHIR Configuration REST API Support for Multiple Namespaces
A new control plane leveraging APIs now forms the backbone for all FHIR server management for on-premise and cloud offerings. The control plane APIs, now required for initiating new FHIR servers, allowing each namespace individual web application setup and one REST handler to support managing the FHIR Servers for the entire instance. A new control plane endpoint is now available for managing FHIR servers that are more secure than the current APIs used for configuring FHIR servers.
OAuth Server Customization Classes Support SMART on FHIR
Customizing OAuth is now simpler with an out-of-the-box supported and documented framework with OAuth server customization logic. Default values for customization options are populated when selecting the appropriate OAuth class hook. See OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect for more information on available Authorization server requests.
Improved FHIR Server Configuration Dashboard
The improved FHIR Server Configuration Dashboard enhances the user’s experience by taking advantage of updated back-end APIs for configuring a FHIR server. Enhancements include:
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Efficient configuration workflows in the user interface, simplifying management of multiple servers
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The ability to display relevant and timely information on resource metrics and high-level auditing
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The ability to manage individual servers and efficiently switch between them
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The ability to load custom packages and FHIR bundles
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The ability to delete all data from a FHIR server without deleting the FHIR server itself
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The ability to decommission a FHIR endpoint without deleting any data
Improved Bulk FHIR Coordinator User Interface
The improved Bulk FHIR Coordinator features an intuitive workflow that simplifies how you configure Bulk FHIR servers. Enhancements include:
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Visual workflow diagrams that guide you through the configuration steps
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Auto-prompting for unsaved changes
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Options to validate endpoint URLs and SSL configurations
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Updated navigational links to improve screen real estate
Enhancing Developer Experience
Removal of Studio
Windows installations of this 2024.2 release do not include the Studio IDE and upgrading an existing instance to this version removes Studio from the instance’s bin directory. Developers who wish to continue using Studio should download the 2024.1 version of the Studio component independently from the WRC component distribution pageOpens in a new tab.
Re-installing Studio as a component does not destroy or modify your existing registry settings, ensuring continuity between your Studio configuration data. The 2024.1 version of the Studio component is forward compatible, so it can connect with 2024.1+ versions.
The 2024.1 version of the Studio component will be available on the WRC distribution page will be available for a minimum of 24 months following the release of 2024.2.
Full Support for Foreign Tables
In the 2023.1 release, InterSystems introduced foreign tables as an experimental feature and worked closely with early adopters through the Early Access Program to solicit feedback on critical features for the full version. With the 2024.2 release, InterSystems has addressed a majority of the feedback, including better metadata management, improved predicate pushdown, and further alignment with the LOAD DATA command that ingests, rather than projects, external data into SQL tables. As part of the promotion out of the experimental status, this release also finalizes the privilege model for managing foreign tables and servers, and running statements against them.
If you are currently using foreign tables with regularly-privileged users (specifically, users that do not have the %All privileges), you may have to grant the USE object privilege on existing foreign servers to query foreign tables. To manage foreign servers, you may also need to grant the new %Manage_Foreign_Server administrative privilege to the appropriate users or roles.
Another new capability introduced in this release is a new THROUGH command to send a SQL statement directly to a foreign server. This new command can be used in exploration scenarios, ahead of a creating a new foreign table after asserting the returned results match expectations.
Foreign tables are now fully supported for production use and all documented APIs can be considered final. InterSystems will continue to enhance the capability, but preserve compatibility with the interfaces available in this 2024.2 release.
Flexible Python Runtime for Microsoft Windows
Customers running on Windows are now able to select the Python runtime used for Embedded Python. You can choose Python 3.9 or higher, including Anaconda, to meet your organization’s needs. Linux users have been able to select their Python runtime since the 2024.1 release.
Enhancing Analytics and AI
Business Intelligence
The 2024.2 release includes some enhancements to business intelligence. In particular:
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Standard KPI plugins have been added to calculate the standard deviation and variance based on measures from fact tables.
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Changes that provide better integration with the PowerBI connector privileges so that the PowerBI user has access to all cubes that are not restricted by a resource or are public cubes.
Reports
The 2024.2 release includes a new version of Logi Report 2024.1 SP2, including enhancements to PDF exports. For additional details, see the Logi Report release notesOpens in a new tab.
InterSystems Connector for Power BI
Beginning with the Microsoft Power BI July 2024 release, the connector which InterSystems provides for Power BI has been renamed from the InterSystems IRIS (Beta) Connector to the InterSystems Health Insight Connector. For clients who have built reports or dashboards using the InterSystems IRIS (Beta) Connector, please follow the instructions provided in Cannot Connect to Data Source for Existing Report or Dashboard to update your connections.
Enhancing Cloud and Operations
Containers for the 2024.2. release of HealthShare® Health Connect are based on Ubuntu 24.04.
Enhancing Speed, Scale and Security
SQL Performance
The 2024.2 release includes a number of enhancements that benefit SQL query performance:
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When ingesting large volumes of data into tables using columnar storage, a new JDBC driver optimization will speed up ingestion as much as an order of magnitude.
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Use of the YEAR, ISNULL, NVL, and COALESCE functions in SQL queries now trigger additional optimizations that should lead to more efficient query execution strategies.
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Query processing now makes broader use of global temporary tables (shared by multiple worker processes) and adaptive parallel execution (such as when using the %FIND operator), enhancing overall performance.
JobServers
The behavior of the JobServers parameter has been updated. Previously, new jobs servers were not created to replace ones that were utilized, and the parameter set both the total number and the number created upon start up.
With the update, the JobServers parameter still sets the number of job servers created at start up, but it also determines the target number of available job servers the system will maintain. As job servers are utilized, more are created so there are always available job servers.
Platform Updates
Ubuntu Version Support
The 2024.2 release adds platform support for Ubuntu 24.04.
Ubuntu 20.04, which was supported in earlier versions, is no longer a supported platform.