Meditech Vendor Interfaces

[Paul Johnston]

Hello ALL,

And a Happy New Year.

We are currently involved in an HIS conversion to Meditech. Meditech had deleivered several Oubtound connections for ADT, Orders…

We started testing and have noticed that Meditech does not appear to maintain a persistent connection with our engine.

When both sides start their connections many messages are sent but after 10 – 15 mins Mediech stops. They continue to report the they are encountering  an “Unable to open Active Socket” and our Interface connections thread continually report an UP status. Our Engine log files report ” (remote side probably shut down) ” .

Has anyone with Meditech Interfaces encountered a similar issue and have been able to resolve it or have workarounds?

Thank you.

Topic

[Jerry Tilsley]

Paul,

We currently use MT 6.08 and are moving to MT 6.16.  Currently in the 6.08 environment we have the connections set so that they reset once an hour instead every 10-15 mins like you are seeing.  What we use the prevents the errors you are seeing, is utilizing the multi-server setting so that MT can reconnect without a problem.  We do check the box so we can see the IP/port of the sender of the inbound message.  Theoretically you could use that information to verify you only received data from the proper server, but we currently don’t do that.  We have used this setup since April 2011 without any issues.  Let me know if you have futher questions, i’d be glad to help.  

Thanks,

Jerry

[Jared Parish]

I’ve experienced similar connection issues on receiving interfaces.  I also chose to enable multi server.  I’ve thought about adjusting OS TCP time-out / keep alive settings but, multi server seemed like the easiest and safest option.

- Jared Parish

[Paul Johnston]

Thank you very much Jerry and Jared.  I will try enabling the Multi-Server option.  

Jerry ,  We are moving to MT 6.16 .  What method did you use to reset your connections every hour ? Cron job or if you are on Windows, a task ? Did you do both IB and OB?

[Paul Johnston]

Hey guys ,

I tried the Multiserver Option but not quite getting it yet. I understand I may require a specific TCL proc to handle the the ACKs and replies.

It would be on the Outbound Thread – Outbound Tab – TPS Inbound Reply.  

From other responses in Clovertech there many bit and pieces of suggested code but I am not successful yet pulling it all together.  

Do you use Proc to handle this I could try ?

[Jared Parish]

For inbound multi server mode, you’d just need to have TPS Inbound Data proc ‘hl7Raw_ack’ or similar defined on the Inbound tab.  See attachment.  No other setup would be needed for multi server mode.  

Changes to the outbound tab wouldn’t be needed for an inbound thread from meditech.

- Jared Parish

[Donna Bailey]

I’ve worked with several versions of meditech and haven’t needed anything special..it goes into a “sleep mode”, but should connect right back up when the next message is ready to send.

Donna

Donna Bailey
Tele: 315-729-3805
dbailey@microstar.health
Micro Star Inc.

[Paul Johnston]

Jared,

Thank you again . That help. I noticed we were using an old hl7Raw_ack proc which was missing logic to handle MultiServer.  Got a new one from Clovertech TCL library and seems to be working.   🙂

[Author]

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