TechnologyAs of 11 October 2026René HerzerCreated with AI

HIS, communication server, data platform, AI platform: who does what in the hospital?

In the hospital, four kinds of system share the work. The HIS holds the patient record and care workflows. The communication server, also called an interface engine, routes messages between systems and translates formats. A data platform based on openEHR or FHIR stores clinical data from many sources in a uniform way. An AI platform answers questions, drafts texts and runs workflows; it reaches clinical data only through an interface that the hospital or vendor approves.

Which system has which task?

System	Task	Examples (according to the vendor)
HIS (hospital information system, German: KIS)	Patient record, admission, documentation, orders, billing: the system in which doctors and nurses work	ORBIS, CGM CLINICAL, NEXUS / KIS, iMedOne
Communication server (interface engine)	Routing messages between HIS, laboratory, radiology, billing and other systems, translating formats, monitoring the exchange	InterSystems Health Connect, Rhapsody, Infor Cloverleaf, Mirth Connect (NextGen)
Data platform (openEHR, FHIR)	Storing clinical data from many systems in a uniform model and making it available for queries	Better Platform, vitagroup HIP, health-engine from the i-engineers
AI platform	Answering questions, drafting texts, running workflows, across documents and connected systems	basebox, ChatGPT Enterprise, Langdock

The four kinds of system solve different tasks. A hospital always needs the HIS, almost always a communication server, a data platform more likely when there are many systems or for research, and an AI platform for texts and knowledge across the whole hospital. What the HIS vendors offer in AI of their own is covered in the guide AI in the HIS; which interfaces exist, in the guide How does an AI reach the data in the HIS?.

What does a communication server do?

A communication server sits between a hospital’s systems. When the HIS reports an admission, it distributes the message to laboratory, radiology and billing, each in the format the target system understands. HL7 v2 is common, and increasingly FHIR as well. On top of this come monitoring, troubleshooting and resilience, because if the communication server fails, many workflows come to a standstill.

An example shows how big this task is: according to an InterSystems press release of 10 June 2026, the Friedrich-Ebert-Krankenhaus Neumünster connects more than 50 systems with around 100 data connections through its communication server. To do so, it replaced Mirth Connect with InterSystems Health Connect.

For hospitals using Mirth Connect, licensing becomes an issue as well: from version 4.6, Mirth Connect is available only under a commercial licence; the last freely available version is 4.5.2 (NextGen Healthcare). What this means for procurement: Licence risk with open-source tools. What hospitals with Mirth should check now: Mirth Connect: licence and connection to AI.

What is a data platform based on openEHR or FHIR?

A data platform stores clinical data not as a message but permanently and uniformly. With openEHR, the data model and the application are separate: experts define the clinical content in archetypes, and applications query it through a REST interface using the query language AQL. A FHIR server provides data as individual resources, such as patient, encounter or finding.

Data platforms are found above all in university hospitals, hospital networks and regions. In research, the comparable facility at German university hospitals is called a data integration centre (Datenintegrationszentrum); care and research are separate routes there, each with its own approvals.

Do these systems bring AI of their own?

Some do, mostly for the experts who look after interfaces and data. As of October 2026, in each case according to the vendor:

Vendor	AI feature	For whom
InterSystems	IRIS AI Hub (presented on 8 May 2026): agents and tools on IRIS and IRIS for Health, with permissions per role; HealthShare AI Assistant (12 November 2025): questions and summaries on patient records in HealthShare	Developers; clinical staff in HealthShare
Rhapsody	Axon (generally available since 4 March 2026): AI agent in Rhapsody and Corepoint that automates steps in interface work	Interface teams
vitagroup	HIP Smart Integrator (17 June 2026): AI suggests how legacy data maps to openEHR and FHIR, experts review every change; ongoing processing runs without AI	Data projects
Better	Text2AQL (23 February 2026): query assistant that translates clinical questions into AQL queries	Analytics experts
the i-engineers	DocDive: search and questions in natural language across the data of the health-engine, with source	Clinical staff
Infor	For Cloverleaf, the product page mentions AI-assisted analytics, not generative AI	–

This AI works within the vendor’s platform and on its data, or helps the team that builds interfaces. InterSystems goes furthest with the AI Hub and offers building blocks with which a hospital develops its own AI applications on the platform. The vendors do not describe these features as an AI platform for all staff, with apps for letters, guidelines, emails and administration.

How do the four systems fit together?

The HIS supplies the care data.
The communication server distributes it to the other systems.
The data platform collects it permanently and uniformly, if the hospital runs one.
The AI platform reads through an interface from the HIS, communication server or data platform once the hospital approves it, and also from documents, wikis and mailboxes.

Questions to settle before a connection:

Which route already exists? A communication server or a data platform can make many systems reachable at once.
Who approves? The vendor, IT and data protection define which data is read for which purpose.
Whose permissions are used for reading? The permissions of the person asking, rather than an account that sees everything.
Read or write? For most use cases, reading is enough.

How does this work with basebox?

basebox is an AI platform. It is neither a HIS nor a communication server nor a data platform, and it does not take the place of any of them. Many hospitals already bring their data together, through a communication server or a data platform based on openEHR or FHIR; basebox can connect to either and then reaches what already comes together there, read-only by default.

HIS: The vendor provides the access, for example through the FHIR interface according to ISiK (the German specification for information technology systems in hospitals). Only then do we build the connector, in agreement with you and the vendor. basebox is not connected to any HIS before this access exists.
FHIR connector: speaks FHIR R4 and is built for each hospital, according to the profiles the system actually provides: in the HIS according to ISiK, in the data integration centre according to the core data set of the German Medical Informatics Initiative.
Data platforms: for example from Better, vitagroup or i-engineers, we connect on request; we build the connector at a fixed price according to the price list, and the design is free of charge.
Your own apps: From November 2026, you describe a task in the App Builder, and AI agents turn it into an app, including across several steps and systems. The app works with the permissions of the person who starts it; write actions run only after approval by a human.
Control: Every access runs with the permissions of the person asking, without a shared service account, and is recorded in the audit log.

Many of the 146 use cases for hospitals run without clinical systems, with documents, guidelines and emails. All connectors and their status: Connectors.

Frequently asked questions

Does an AI platform need a communication server?

Not to get started. Many use cases run with documents, guidelines and emails. For clinical data, an existing communication server or data platform is often the shortest route, because what the AI is meant to read already comes together there. The hospital decides what is released.

Is an interface engine the same as a communication server?

In everyday hospital practice, usually yes. Both terms refer to software that routes messages between systems, translates formats such as HL7 v2 and FHIR and monitors the exchange. Some vendors also call their product an interoperability platform if it does more, for example controlling workflows.

Does a data platform replace the HIS?

No. The HIS remains the system in which staff document and work. A data platform stores clinical data from the HIS and other systems in a uniform model so that other applications can query it, for example for research, quality assurance or new applications.

Does an AI platform automatically get access to this data?

No. The hospital or the vendor approves every interface, with defined data, sign-in and permissions. With basebox, the connector then reads with the permissions of the person asking, read-only by default, and every access is recorded in the audit log.

Sources

Connectors AI for hospitals

This article was created with the help of AI, based on the sources listed. Responsible for the content: basebox GmbH. Not legal advice, no liability. Research as of 11 October 2026.