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Using SOA with Web Services for effective Integration of Hospital Information
Systems via an Enterprise Service Bus

Article · January 2013

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IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
www.ijreat.org

Using SOA with Web Services for effective Integration of

Hospital Information Systems via an Enterprise Service Bus
Quist-Aphetsi Kester, MIEEE
Faculty of Informatics, Ghana Technology University College,
PMB 100, Accra-North, Tesano, Accra, Ghana

Abstract
Hospitals are distributed across geographical areas and it is capacity to service the needs. This is accomplished by
important for all hospitals to share information as well as publishing the service in a registry.
integrate their systems for effective researching and health As corporate dependence on technology has grown
delivery. Health personals and institutions in need of information
more complex and far reaching, the need for a method of
from hospitals with respect to geographical areas can easily do
researches on patients, treatments, disease outbreaks, and effects
integrating disparate applications into a unified set of
of drugs. business processes has emerged as a priority. Users and
This research work is aimed at integrating of database systems of business managers are demanding that seamless bridges be
hospital across geographical areas via a service bus. A built to join them. In effect, they are demanding that ways
centralized service bus was used to facilitate interoperability of be found to bind these applications into a single, unified
applications across platforms and enhance communication within enterprise application. The development of Enterprise
the hospital infrastructure as well as creating enabling Application Integration (EAI), which allows many of the
environment for new layer of abstractions to be added without stovepipe applications that exist today to share both
modification of the entire system. Concept of Service Oriented
processes and data, allows us to finally answer this demand.
Architecture with web services was used for rapid integration
solution in solving the challenges faced during integration of [4]
multiple incompatible applications. Service Oriented architecture (SOA) has gained
Keywords: SOA, Web services, GIS, Hospital Information popularity in recent years due to its enabling functionality
systems, Integration, Enterprise Service Bus. or services to upgrade and extend existing software
applications. SOA is an architectural approach to build and
deploy software applications that is interoperable by
1. Introduction design.SOA has grown as companies endeavor to leverage
their existing client base and to integrate their acquired
To achieve the goal of the global national e-health software with their clients’ existing ERP system and also it
strategy that intends to provide an interoperable, makes software connectivity capabilities very easy. Unlike
standardized and secure platform for all involved partners EAI no middleware is needed as adoptions of standards
in supporting healthcare services, one needs to focus on enable services to interact directly. It also enhances
interoperability and integration of all distributed enterprise reusability capacity of software, resulting longer life of
health information management systems that exists across existing assets. A successful SOA implementation makes it
geographical areas. This should cover hospitals, health easier to customize and upgrade existing applications
research institutions etc. Having access to the right thereby reducing total cost of ownership. [5] The adoption
information in real-time is among the most efficient ways of service oriented Architecture and web services provide
of decision making in today’s world. GIS as part of a a rapid solution to solving integration problems faced by
information systems can be used in generating organizations [6] [7] [8] [9].
geographical reports for effective analysis and decision The paper has the following structure: section 2 consist of
making. [1][2] related works, section 3 gives information on the
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has radically methodology, section 4 discusses the approach used for the
changed the application integration landscape. SOA can be integration, 5 talks about implementation as well as results
considered as a business-centric approach for enabling and section concluded the paper.
integration. Visibility, interaction and effect are the key
concepts in any SOA implementation [3]. Visibility refers
to the capacity of those with a need to see those with a

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IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
www.ijreat.org

2. Related Works creation is driven by a number of inter- and intra-

organizational issues that define tasks important to the
In this development paradigm, functionality is individuals and the firm (i.e., the constituency); the
exposed as services thereby enabling service requesters construction addresses the technology required to
and providers interact through messages. Services are built accomplish the tasks; and execution seeks to ensure that
to be autonomous but can also be combined to form even SOA will facilitate information exchange in the
larger services and applications. Service orientation environment.
provides guidelines and principles that govern the creation, Bell (2008) provides a SOA methodology that takes a
implementation and management of services. more technical approach. It professes that all software can
Primarily, services are implemented as Web Services be considered as services that are designed based on the
(WS) which are defined by the W3C as “software systems informational tasks of the organization, configured for
designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine transmission in the working environments, constructed
interaction over a network” [10].It has an interface with available technologies, and deployed for use by
described in a machine-processable format. Other systems individuals. The methodology represents a conceptual
interact with the Web service in a manner prescribed by its structure that brings together distributed services based on
description using SOAP-messages, typically conveyed the functionality [18].
using HTTP with an XML serialization in conjunction with
other Web-related standards [10].Extensible Markup
Language (XML) has emerged as a powerful self- 3. Methodology
describing language to enable businesses to share
information and conduct transactions on the Internet. The SOA with web services guides all aspects of creating
emergence of XML as a standard, to a large extent, has and using software services throughout the software system
driven the evolution of application integration technologies. lifecycle Thus, from their conception to their retirement.
[1] And also in defining and conditioning the IT infrastructure
Inherently, a service is a software component that that allows different applications to exchange data and
contains a collection of related software functionalities participate in business processes regardless of the
reusable for different purposes [11].It delivers such operating systems or programming languages underlying
operations as data storage, data processing, mathematical those applications. [6] [19]
and scientific computations, and networking. It is governed This research work is aimed at integrating of hospital
by a producer-consumer model in which a service is information systems of hospitals via a service bus. A
delivered by a service provider known as the producer centralized service bus was used to facilitate
which owns the facilities for hosting, running, and interoperability of applications across platforms and
maintaining the service, and the client known as the enhance communication within the hospital infrastructure
consumer which connects and uses service functionalities. as well as creating enabling environment for new layer of
Much of the research regarding SOA tackles more abstractions to be added without modification of the entire
granular technical issues of development and system. The entire integration process was based on the
implementation of Web services, which may be a result of concepts of SOA with web services. The form of approach
the aforesaid misconceptions [12]. Few papers e.g., used was to enable other health services within and outside
[13],[14], deal with the much larger problem of defining hospitals to communicate and exchange data.
what SOA means to the organization and how this
definition should then provide the guidance for the
development of components to meet business information
needs[15]. The IT adoption literature targeting a
methodology for development states that there are five
categories of factors influencing the decision to adopt SOA
(i.e., environmental, organizational, individual, technology,
and task characteristics [16]. These same factors should be
addressed by the methodology for implementing SOA
projects [17]. We now discuss two SOA methodologies
that attempt to embody some or all of these factors.
Teti (2006), an industry analyst, provides a
methodology, which entails creating a vision, construction,
and execution. He suggests that this model is applicable to
many projects, but specifically addresses SOA. The vision Fig. 1 Service integration model for hospitals
IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
www.ijreat.org

In the above figure, the services of the hospitals were form of web pages to the consumers via which they can
connected via a central service bus to enable information access the services and view results.
exchange and effective data communication between This choice of architecture is effective because it provides
software applications. This also enabled interoperability access to a wide range of consumers and devices as a result
for heterogeneous applications where multiple systems can of the ubiquitous technologies employed in the
share information. This further makes data migration and presentation layer while also providing a high level of
usage easy from one system to another. separation of concern. However, the consumers are loosely
coupled to the individual services. This provides flexibility
because the service providers can switch database
technologies or business logic implementation without
4. The Integration Approach affecting the consumer as long as the exposed services
conform to a predefined contract that the consumer is
A multi-tier architecture was employed in devising the accustomed to. Implementation of services by providers is
solution. The architecture consists of the database layer, also relatively cheap as services can be built on existing
business logic layer, middleware/ service bus, and infrastructures without restructuring the whole system.
presentation layer. The database and business logic layer
reside at the service providers’ end. The database
information would be made available to requestors through
the data access layer, while the business logic layer is
where the business rules that determine how data is created,
stored and accessed are implemented. The database
technologies and business logic implementations vary
across service providers. As a result of the service-oriented
architecture being implemented, external access to these
databases is provided via services. The services are
implemented using web service technology. The choice of
web services technology is due to its support for open
technologies and protocols such as HTTP (hypertext
transfer protocol), XML (extensible markup language), and,
WSDL (web service definition language) among others.
These open technologies provide a desired level of
interoperability and easy means of access. The web
services provide functionality to access the databases while
implementing the business logic at the backend. The
individual services are registered in a repository from
where they can be accessed. Users can access services
directly in repositories; in this case, access will be through
a middleware. An enterprise service bus is the middleware
between service requestors and the services providers.
Since the requestors need to access various services to get
comprehensive information from the hospitals, the ESB Fig. 2 The layer architecture for hospitals
performs the task of determining what service to access
and the order they are accessed. In other words, the ESB From figure 2, the Infrastructure Layer consists of the
performs service orchestration. Service consumers cannot computer hardware (Servers, desktops, peripheral devices,
access the ESB directly so a further interface is required. UPS, etc.); civil infrastructure designed for (server rooms,
Service consumers request services today via an array of control centers, etc.) and network infrastructure (Structured
devices ranging from desktop computers and laptops to cabling, switchers, routers, fiber optic channels, etc). The
mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. A Data Layer is composed by required databases like a GIS
universal mode of access is required for all these devices database (reference maps, road maps, high resolution
hence the choice of a web interface. Most modern devices imaginary); A database to store logs and records of past
contain a web browser that can be used to access web and ongoing records; Other related databases and a system
content irrespective of operating platforms. As a result, a database to manage records etc. the integration layer
web server is required to provide a presentation layer in exposes functions to both external and inter users. The
Application Layer integrates functions into modules which
IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
www.ijreat.org

is made available to communication carriers define in the Fig. 4 Web enabled systems for provider and requestor.
communication layer. Users Layer represent users of the
system. In the figure above, languages and protocols were
The Usage of the Integration Layer for hospitals as shown standardized to eliminate the need for many different
in Figure 3 provides a level of indirection between the middleware infrastructures and the interactions were based
consumer of functionality and its provider. A service on protocols redesigned and the internal functionality
consumer interacts with the service provider through the settings were made available as a service. Service-oriented
Integration Layer. Therefore, each service interface is only architecture has standardization as a key policy in
exposed via the Integration Layer (e.g., Enterprise Service implementing web services for easy integration of multiple
Bus), never directly and point-to-point integration is done incompatible applications [9]. Web services provide an
at the Integration Layer instead of consumers/requestors entry point for accessing local services and with
doing it themselves. Consumers and providers are homogeneous components that reduces the difficulties of
decoupled; this decoupling allows integration of disparate integration. Web services were exposed through the
systems into new solutions. interface. Homogeneous components were built to reduce
the difficulties of integration. Service descriptions were
made richer and more detailed, covering aspects beyond
the service interface.
The architecture of the solution proposed in this paper is
based on the Open Group SOA Reference Architecture as
seen in figure 5 below. The SOA reference architecture
provides a baseline that shows the basic layers involved in
a typical SOA solution. This diagram shows the different
layers of the reference model and how they fit together to
provide a standard service oriented solution. The Open
Group SOA Ontology provides a taxonomy and ontology
Fig. 3 Usage of the Integration Layer by hospitals
for SOA. [20]
Consumers seeking to use a service are provided with a
front end web page through which they can search for
information. The search input is posted back to the web
server on submission and then the input is transferred to
the enterprise service bus via the appropriate adapter. The
ESB has a collection of approved web services exposed by
the various vendors in its registry. The ESB passes the
input parameters to the appropriate services in the registry.
These services in turn transfer the input parameter to their
remote applications on which their business logic resides.
The applications query the databases using the supplied
parameter and the results are passed back to the ESB. The
results are accumulated and transferred back to the web
server where they are formatted and displayed to the end
user in a web page.

Requestor Provider

Web Service Web Service

Internal requests Internal infrastructure

Data warehouse
Internal infrastructure Fig. 5 the Open Group SOA Reference Architecture
Web Service

Internal infrastructure
IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
www.ijreat.org

running in the web tier and web browser, which renders the
pages received from the server. The application clients
directly access enterprise beans running in the business tier.
The clients interact with Java EE servers, enabling the Java
EE platform to interoperate with legacy systems, clients,
and non-Java languages.
The middle tier was developed with a Web server
running Java servlets which accesses a database and
returns an HTML page. Web browsers then communicate
with the server by using HTTP. Java servlets requests
through methods inherited from the HttpServlet class:
doGet(HttpServletRequest, HttpServletResponse) and
doPost(HttpServletRequest, HttpServletResponse). The
doGet() and doPost() methods have two arguments: an
HttpServletRequest object and an HttpServletResponse
object. The servlet communicates with the user by sending
back an HTML document, a graphics file, or other types of
information supported by the web browser. It sends this
information by calling the methods of the
HttpServletResponse class after the request have been
made and the results are been sent.
The general steps taken in setting up the back-end
database server are as follows:
• Importing the packages
Fig. 6 Integrated Hospital Information Systems via a Service Bus • Registering the JDBC drivers
• Opening a Connection to the Database
• Creating a Statement Object
Figure 6 illustrates how various disparate data • Executing a Query and Returning a Results Set
sources of hospital information systems are connected via Object
a service bus. Institutions and individuals can access • Processing the Result Set
services using Smartphone and other devices. • Closing the Result Set and Statement Objects
• Closing the Connection
At the end web services were exposed through the
interface and the functionality performed by the internal
5. Implementation and results systems and this makes the services discoverable and
accessible through the Web in a controlled manner.
The implementation was done by building the N-tier
Homogeneous components were built to reduce the
database application that uses Java servlets and the Java
difficulties of integration and standardized. The application
Database Connection (JDBC). The tiers consist of Client
integration in environment encompasses three layers: a
Tier or user interface, Middle Tier or business logic and
business process layer, an integration layer, and an
Data Storage Tier. The logical tiers were implemented to
application server layer. Each layer, in turn, holds
correspond to three types of hosts namely: the browser or
technologies that serve as the application server integration
GUI Application to serve the client, Web Server or
building blocks. The application server layer enables an
Application Server and the Database Server (often an
application integration project to link not only with
RDBMS or Relational Database). Servlets was used for
existing enterprise systems but also with the Web. The
creating HTML user interface pages. The servlets
application integration platform adds an integration layer
JavaBeans were responsible for business logic and Java
on top of application server. To integrate applications at
classes responsible for data access. These objects used
the business logic layer, systems were enabled to consume
were JDBC to query the database. The HttpServlet class
and provide XML-based Web services.
provides methods, such as doGet and doPost, for handling
HTTP-specific services.
The web client consists of two parts: Dynamic web
pages containing various types of markup language such as
HTML and XML, which are generated by web components
 IJREAT International Journal of Research in Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 1, Issue 2, April-May, 2013
ISSN: 2320 - 8791
www.ijreat.org

6. Conclusions

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