All-in-one medical
device & healthcare IT
infrastructure monitoring

Watch the Integration Engine

The integration engine is the central communication server of the IT environment. It receives messages from different systems, translates them into formats that other systems can understand, and distributes the messages further via multiple technologies, including HL7, DICOM, Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) and HTTP-based requests.

To make sure that the Integration Engine is up and running and processing messages correctly, you should watch the following aspects:

• Hardware: monitor available disk space, memory, CPU load etc.
• Messages: monitor the number of processed messages, errors in the messages etc.
• Latency: monitor the read and write latency to connected databases

Keep an eye on your PACS

The Picture Archive and Communication System, or PACS, is an image sharing platform and as such, a central repository for images generated from devices like MRTs or video endoscopies. These images are stored on the PACS so they can be accessed or transferred by other workstations or devices. To make sure that images are stored and can be accessed correctly, you should keep an eye on different aspects of the PACS.

These aspects can be:

• Hardware: monitor available disk space, memory, signs of overheating etc.
• Latency: monitor the latency of read and write tasks
• Log files: monitor the number of PACS errors, failed authentication attempts etc.
• Interfaces: monitor availability and responsiveness of workstations that access PACS data

Monitor the different modalities

Modalities refer to healthcare equipment that is used for creating medical images, for example X-ray, Computer Tomography (CT), or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Modalities use the DICOM standard to take images, connect to a PACS, and send the images there to store them. Each modality has an associated worklist that contains a list of scheduled jobs as well as patient data.

To make sure that medical devices are reachable and the data transfer works as expected, you should keep an eye on the following:

• Availability: monitor C-ECHO requests to make sure devices are up & running
• Performance: monitor the response times of C-ECHO requests
• Worklists: monitor the number of worklist items to identify bottlenecks or other issues
• Storage: check for locally stored medical images to identify storage issues with the PACS

Check health information exchange

Digital medical devices, interfaces, and systems don’t run in isolation. Patient data like X-Ray or ultrasound images, laboratory or specialist results, the patient’s history, or details of the patient’s primary care physician are transported via the hospital’s system infrastructure, which consists of different subsystems.

Examples can be:

• Master patient data is managed via the Hospital Information System (HIS)
• Laboratory data is stored in the Laboratory Information System (LIMS)
• Radiology data is managed via the Radiology Information System (RIS.

All these health information exchange (HIE) systems use different technologies to transfer data. To bring the information from all these systems together, including data transfer and data traffic, you can set up a Business Process sensor in PRTG for each hospital workflow that you want to keep an eye on.

Monitor custom healthcare IT cases

In addition to our preconfigured eHealth sensors, PRTG offers a REST Custom sensor, with which you can practically integrate everything in the healthcare IT sector that you want to monitor via REST API.

Here are some examples:

• Changes in and issues with electronic documentation, for example on-premises or cloud-based EHRs (Electronic Health Records)
• Service level agreements made with HISPs (health information service providers)
• Availability and status of mobile health (mHealth) devices such as wearable sensors and mobile workstations
• Triggering of reminders and alerts in CDS (clinical decision support) processes
• Business & clinical intelligence applications that are used for financial and operational aspects of healthcare environments