Lead Integration & Interoperability Architect

The Lead Integration & Interoperability Architect will provide strategic and hands-on architectural leadership for the HSE Shared Care Record integration capability and its associated healthcare data platform. The role is accountable for defining how data is received, validated, transformed, standardised, governed and made available to the Shared Care Record (SCR) platform, which is based on the Better EHR platform, and to other approved national services.

The integration estate will receive data from a wide range of clinical, administrative and operational systems using heterogeneous formats and protocols. These may include HL7 v2 and v3 messages, HL7 FHIR, openEHR, JSON, XML, CSV and other file-based or API-based exchanges. The architect will establish the patterns, standards and governance required to convert these inputs into consistent, reusable and clinically meaningful target representations.

The role will have particular responsibility for the integration and ingestion layers that connect source systems to the SCR platform, while providing architectural oversight across the wider transformation, standardisation and consumption capabilities. The architect must ensure that decisions made at the point of ingestion support downstream clinical modelling, data quality, operational use, analytics and future reuse.

The post holder must be able to work across technology, data, clinical informatics and business domains at both enterprise and detailed solution level. The role will engage with source-system owners, programme teams, clinical stakeholders, data engineers, integration developers, technology teams, information governance, cyber security, suppliers and the SCR platform provider.

Key Responsibilities

1. Integration and Interoperability Architecture

• Lead the creation, evolution and implementation of the HSE Shared Care Record integration and interoperability architecture.
• Define the end-to-end integration architecture from source-system connectivity through ingestion, transformation, standardisation and publishing to the SCR platform.
• Develop reusable integration patterns for messaging, APIs, events, files, batch transfers and near-real-time data exchange.
• Define when Rhapsody, data engineering services, APIs, event-driven components or other platform capabilities should be used, and establish clear responsibility boundaries between them.
• Ensure architecture decisions support national-scale performance, resilience, security, operability and future extensibility.
• Provide architecture leadership for complex integrations spanning multiple organisations, vendors, care settings and technology platforms.

2. Rhapsody and Integration-Layer Ownership

• Own the architecture of the core integration and ingestion layers, including connectivity, routing, message handling, validation, enrichment, persistence, replay and failure management.
• Define Rhapsody implementation standards, route patterns, component reuse, configuration conventions, deployment practices and environment management.
• Establish patterns for receiving HL7, FHIR, JSON, XML, CSV and other structured or semi-structured data.
• Define source onboarding standards covering interface contracts, connectivity, security, message profiles, test evidence, operational readiness and support ownership.
• Ensure raw-source fidelity, provenance, traceability and auditability are retained so that data can be reprocessed when mappings, rules or target models change.
• Provide design assurance and technical direction to Rhapsody developers, integration engineers and supplier teams.

3. Integration, Transformation and Data Standardisation Architecture

• Define the architectural responsibilities, entry and exit criteria, data contracts and quality controls across the ingestion, transformation, standardisation and consumption layers.
• Ensure the integration layer preserves source data and technical metadata while providing controlled validation and quarantine of invalid or incomplete records.
• Define the approach for cleansing, deduplication, terminology normalisation, identity resolution, canonicalisation and conformance to approved clinical models.
• Define the approach for producing trusted, consumable datasets and services supporting the SCR, clinical, operational, reporting and approved secondary-use requirements.
• Prevent duplication or ambiguity between integration-engine transformations and downstream data-processing and standardisation activities.
• Establish lineage and reconciliation controls allowing records to be traced from source payload through each transformation stage to the final target representation.

4. Healthcare Standards and Clinical Modelling

• Lead the application of healthcare messaging and interoperability standards, including HL7 v2, HL7 v3, HL7 FHIR, IHE profiles and openEHR.
• Define the approach for translating local and vendor-specific source formats into standardised FHIR resources and openEHR archetypes/templates used by the SCR platform.
• Oversee the development and governance of message profiles, FHIR profiles, implementation guides, openEHR templates, canonical models and mapping specifications.
• Ensure semantic interoperability through appropriate use of terminology standards such as SNOMED CT, LOINC, ICD and approved national code systems.
• Work with clinical informatics and terminology specialists to ensure transformations preserve clinical meaning, context, units, status, provenance and interpretive information.
• Define versioning, backward compatibility and migration approaches for standards, profiles, archetypes, mappings and interface contracts.
• Provide architectural leadership on alignment with the European Health Data Space (EHDS), including implications for primary use, secondary use, cross-border exchange, interoperability and data portability.
• Ensure integration and data-standardisation approaches are capable of supporting European Electronic Health Record exchange requirements and future European interoperability specifications.
• Assess the impact of EHDS requirements on data formats, metadata, provenance, consent, access controls, auditability, patient access and permitted reuse of health data.
• Work with policy, legal, clinical, data-governance and programme stakeholders to translate EHDS obligations into practical architecture principles, standards, controls and delivery roadmaps.

5. Data Quality, Validation and Transformation

• Define layered validation covering transport, syntax, structure, conformance, terminology, business rules and clinical plausibility.
• Establish consistent error-handling patterns, including rejection, quarantine, correction, replay, alerting and escalation.
• Define data-quality metrics and thresholds for completeness, accuracy, timeliness, uniqueness, consistency and conformance.
• Ensure transformation logic is documented, testable, version controlled and subject to appropriate clinical and architecture approval.
• Establish reconciliation controls between source-system volumes, ingestion outcomes, transformed records and records accepted by the SCR platform.
• Support the design of data correction and remediation processes without compromising source fidelity or audit history.

6. API, Messaging and Event-Driven Integration

• Define secure and reusable API-led integration patterns, including RESTful APIs, FHIR APIs, asynchronous messaging and event-driven integration.
• Define interface contract standards covering schemas, profiles, error models, idempotency, correlation, pagination, versioning and service-level expectations.
• Establish patterns for synchronous and asynchronous processing, guaranteed delivery, retries, dead-letter handling, duplicate detection and ordering.
• Ensure integration solutions are loosely coupled and avoid unnecessary point-to-point dependencies.
• Align integration patterns with wider enterprise API management, messaging, identity, security and cloud standards.

7. Security, Privacy and Information Governance

• Embed security-by-design, privacy-by-design and least-privilege principles across all integration and data-processing layers.
• Define secure transport, authentication, authorisation, encryption, secrets management, network segmentation and audit requirements.
• Ensure solutions support GDPR, HSE information governance, records-management requirements and relevant data-sharing agreements.
• Define controls for sensitive health data, including access logging, data minimisation, retention, masking and non-production data handling.
• Work with cyber security and information governance stakeholders to assess architectural risks and ensure appropriate controls are implemented and evidenced.

8. Reliability, Observability and Operations

• Define non-functional requirements for availability, resilience, throughput, latency, scalability, recoverability and supportability.
• Establish end-to-end observability using structured logging, metrics, traces, correlation identifiers, dashboards and alerting.
• Define service-level indicators and operational reporting for interface success, failures, backlog, latency, data quality and reconciliation.
• Ensure architecture supports disaster recovery, controlled replay, failover, capacity management and predictable recovery from partial failures.
• Contribute to operational support models, runbooks, incident management, problem management and continuous service improvement.

9. Architecture Governance and Assurance

• Lead and facilitate the creation of integration and interoperability standards, principles, guardrails and reference architectures.
• Chair or contribute to architecture reviews and provide formal assurance of solution designs, supplier proposals and implementation approaches.
• Maintain architecture artefacts including context diagrams, data-flow diagrams, sequence diagrams, interface catalogues, decision records, standards and roadmaps.
• Define architecturally significant requirements and ensure they are traceable through design, implementation, testing and operational acceptance.
• Identify technical debt, architectural risks and capability gaps, and develop pragmatic remediation roadmaps.
• Ensure delivery remains aligned with enterprise architecture while recognising when enterprise standards must evolve.

10. Stakeholder, Supplier and Team Leadership

• Act as the senior architectural authority for integration and interoperability within the HSE Shared Care Record programme.
• Engage effectively with clinical, operational, programme, data, cyber, infrastructure and executive stakeholders.
• Lead architectural engagement with the SCR platform provider, source-system vendors, implementation partners and health service providers.
• Translate complex technical and interoperability issues into clear choices, impacts, risks and recommendations for non-technical decision-makers.
• Mentor architects, integration engineers and developers, and promote a shared engineering and architecture culture.
• Support procurement, vendor evaluation, due diligence, technical scoring and contract requirements for integration-related capabilities.

Key Deliverables

• HSE Shared Care Record integration and interoperability strategy, target architecture and multi-year roadmap.
• Reference architecture for Rhapsody and the end-to-end integration, transformation and data standardisation layers.
• Source-system onboarding framework and reusable interface delivery lifecycle.
• Integration pattern catalogue covering HL7, FHIR, APIs, events, files and batch processing.
• Healthcare data transformation and canonicalisation strategy.
• FHIR profiling and implementation-guide approach, together with openEHR archetype/template governance.
• Data-quality, validation, reconciliation, lineage and provenance framework.
• Architecture standards for security, observability, resilience, versioning and operational readiness.
• Architecture decision records, interface specifications, mapping specifications and design-assurance outputs.
• Capability roadmap for integration tooling, skills, governance and operating model maturity.
• EHDS readiness assessment and roadmap covering interoperability, data access, portability, governance and future European exchange requirements.

Required Skills and Experience

Technical Expertise - Essential

• Extensive experience designing and delivering complex enterprise integration architectures in large, distributed and multi-party environments.
• Strong practical experience with healthcare integration engines; direct Rhapsody experience is strongly preferred.
• Deep knowledge of HL7 v2 messaging, including message structures, trigger events, acknowledgements, profiles, validation and common clinical workflows.
• Strong knowledge of HL7 FHIR, including resource modelling, profiling, implementation guides, RESTful APIs, search, transactions, bundles and conformance.
• Practical understanding of openEHR concepts including archetypes, templates, compositions, terminology bindings and mapping from source systems.
• Experience designing transformations across HL7, FHIR, JSON, XML, CSV and other structured data formats.
• Experience with ETL/ELT and layered data architectures, including clear separation of ingestion, transformation, standardisation and consumption responsibilities.
• Strong understanding of canonical data models, schema evolution, semantic interoperability, provenance, lineage and master/reference data.
• Experience with API management, message brokers, event-driven architectures, queues, publish/subscribe and asynchronous processing.
• Experience defining data validation, quality, reconciliation, error handling, quarantine and replay patterns.
• Experience designing highly available, resilient, secure and observable integration services.
• Knowledge of cloud and hybrid architectures and of integrating on-premise clinical systems with cloud-hosted platforms.

Healthcare and Information Standards - Essential

• Substantial experience in healthcare, health informatics or another highly regulated and safety-sensitive data environment.
• Knowledge of healthcare terminology and classification standards such as SNOMED CT, LOINC and ICD.
• Understanding of clinical data context, including patient identity, encounter context, observations, orders, results, documents, medications and provenance.
• Awareness of IHE integration profiles and national healthcare interoperability requirements.
• Strong knowledge of the European Health Data Space (EHDS) and its implications for health data exchange, interoperability, patient access, primary use and secondary use.
• Understanding of the developing European EHR exchange framework, common specifications and the relationship between EHDS requirements and standards such as HL7 FHIR, openEHR, SNOMED CT, LOINC and IHE.
• Ability to translate European regulatory and interoperability requirements into actionable architecture standards, roadmaps and platform capabilities.
• Understanding of privacy, information governance and clinical-safety considerations associated with transforming and exchanging health information.

Architecture and Delivery Leadership - Essential

• Demonstrated ability to set technical direction across multiple teams and suppliers while remaining sufficiently hands-on to review detailed designs and resolve complex issues.
• Experience establishing architecture governance, standards, design assurance and decision-making processes.
• Ability to develop clear, actionable architecture artefacts and communicate them using C4, UML, ArchiMate, data-flow or equivalent modelling techniques.
• Strong experience managing architectural risk, dependencies, technical debt and cross-programme alignment.
• Experience working across agile delivery, DevOps and controlled enterprise change processes.
• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders, facilitate agreement and communicate complex choices clearly.