David & Lew,
Meditech can provide a direct interface with Pyxis. Last time I used it, it was 10,000.00. It is a standard HL7 Interface. OR rather than purchase multiple HL7 interfaces from MT for different outside systems, I told MT that I wanted one out interface for patient reg and demographics and I wanted one generic in to MT for charges. They gave me a bad time saying that they needed to know what I was going to interface to, but I held my ground and they did give me what I wanted. I had them build their interface to go to a preset IP and receive from a set IP. The server at the IP was running an HL7 program I wrote using Neotools. That program accepted the data from MT, real-time (admissions, discharges, transfers, IP, OP, and OBS). The program then output the same data to where I wanted it. In this case I sent a set to Pyxis, a set to a SQL database for data warehouse and another set to a cath lab program. If I had gone to MT with each interface this would have cost over 30,000. Once the Neotools program was written, to add a new location, I just added the IP it was going to go to. The reverse was the same for charges. It is a great way to get the data to an outside system and use the same data for an internal webpage for administration (i.e. dashboard) showing real-time census by phy, F/C and others all on one page.
All this is not to take away from BWS, but I believe you should always try to use the correct tool for each job. I have programmed hundreds of tasks with BWS. In fact, I will be presenting at Region 5 MUSE the end of October a number of different time and money saving ways of using BWS.
Good Luck,
Michael Jobin
MAJConsulting
