The primary project for our development team is EXTENSION®. EXTENSION® is a Workflow, Communication, and Device Integration Engine. EXTENSION® is designed to get medical applications talking to other applications, servers, and systems by providing a centralized point of communication. The development team has built EXTENSION® to be standards compliant with HL7, XML, SOAP, and REST and easily extensible to new standards as needed. In addition to standardized communication we are also able to integrate with proprietary systems and open communications from those systems via standard protocols to other systems.

EXTENSION®’s goal is to be as standards compliant as possible while still being able to readily adapt to new circumstances. We started out using Ruby on Rails to prototype the system and we stuck with it because both Ruby and Rails meet our standards goals and allow us to focus on our design rather than on the nuances of a single language. We also make use of other languages ranging from C to Java to C# and VB.NET in some situations.

• Learn new languages and frameworks
• Focus on standards compliance
• Apply best-practices to software development
• Be aware of the security and safety implications of software
• Support the software that they develop
• Prove that code is solid through the use of automated testing
• Spot issues in functional specs and technical designs before they become bugs
• Specific experience with the languages we’re using is a plus, but not a requirement