Harris Corporation Delivers Release of CONNECT 2.3, Built Under Contract with the Federal Health Architecture

ATLANTA, March 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- (HIMSS '10, Booth #3133) -- Harris Corporation (NYSE: HRS) has released the newest version of CONNECT software to enable healthcare organizations to securely exchange patient information on the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN).  The CONNECT solution was developed under contract for the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) project within the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

CONNECT 2.3 offers key feature enhancements to the open source enterprise framework, and compliance with updated NHIN specifications  The open source CONNECT is being widely embraced as a health information exchange solution for NHIN connectivity, with many health enterprises abandoning proprietary solutions and opting instead for the CONNECT open source platform.

"For the sixth consecutive time, Harris has delivered the CONNECT release on schedule and budget with full functionality," said Jim Traficant, vice president of Harris Healthcare Solutions.  "CONNECT 2.3 is a significant milestone enabling limited operational production for secure health information exchange between federal agencies and with private health enterprises."

Social Security Administration (SSA) was the first federal agency to go live with CONNECT in February 2009, receiving data from private provider MedVa.  Later that summer, MedVA migrated to CONNECT from its original proprietary interface, with the Harris-led CONNECT Team supporting advancement to NHIN production.  As a result, Social Security reduced the time for disability claims processing from months to days.  

CONNECT 2.3's new platform independence makes it easier for users to leverage contributions from the open source community.  As a leading international communications and information technology company, Harris – along with its teammates Agilex Technologies and Scenpro – continues to foster and support the CONNECT Open Source Community.  The team supported two major CONNECT Open Source Community forums in late 2009 – the Release 2.3 Webinar in October and the CONNECT Code-A-Thon in November.

"Open Source CONNECT is key to accelerating the National priority of digitized medical records and secure health information exchange," said Traficant.  

Additional benefits of CONNECT 2.3 include:

• Platform independence, supporting both Linux and Windows operating systems.
• Ability to specify the software's behavior when processing results of a patient's discovery.
• Ability to determine whether patient correlations have short or long durations.
• New features that support consent and compliance with the U.S. government computer security standard, FIPS 140-2.

The CONNECT solution is sponsored by the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) project within Health and Human Services.  FHA received the 2009 Information Week's Government Innovator Award for the CONNECT Solution and was recognized as one of "10 Government Organizations that Understand IT Innovation."

Harris Healthcare Solutions provides enterprise intelligence solutions and services for government and commercial customers – including systems integration, intelligent infrastructure, advanced visualization and display, enterprise digital content management and IT solutions.  A leader in federal healthcare IT integration, Harris products, systems and services improve healthcare outcomes by assuring that critical medical and benefits information is delivered with security and privacy to the right person, on the right device, at the point of care.

About Harris Corporation

Harris is an international communications and information technology company serving government and commercial markets worldwide.  Headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, the company has approximately $5 billion of annual revenue and more than 15,000 employees — including nearly 7,000 engineers and scientists.  Harris is dedicated to developing best-in-class assured communications® products, systems, and services.  Additional information about Harris Corporation is available at www.harris.com.

SOURCE Harris Corporation