Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise

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Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise ( IHE ) is an initiative by users and manufacturers with the aim of standardizing and harmonizing the exchange of data between IT systems in the healthcare sector . The focus here is on the implementation of medical processes between the systems and the creation of interoperability . IHE formulates practical requirements in so-called use cases , identifies relevant standards and develops technical guidelines, so-called profiles, with which a manufacturer can implement and test his product. At the international "Connectathon" manufacturers test their systems among themselves and prepare them for practical use.

One or more IHE profiles have already been implemented in over 200 products. IHE is supported by the German X - Ray Society , the Federal Association of Health IT (bvitg), the Central Association of the Electrical and Electronics Industry (ZVEI), the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and many other organizations.

organization

IHE is organized internationally, with IHE Europe acting as the umbrella for 12 European country organizations. The committees are within IHE Europe

  1. Steering Committee
  2. Development Committee
  3. MarCom (for marketing and communication)

established. The IHE Deutschland eV was founded in Germany, the organization of which is based on selected IHE domains, so that, in addition to the board and management, there are contacts for the areas of IT-I, laboratory , cardiology , PCC and radiology .

Work results and approach

IHE published technical frameworks ( Technical Frameworks ) as guidelines for the implementation in the company. A framework is created in various working groups and the results are published as profiles for commenting and discussion. Then sample implementations are tested ( trial implementation ). The experiences gained from this flow back into the framework. Existing standards, especially the widespread HL7 and DICOM, will be retained and expanded.

The following technical frameworks exist:

  1. Anatomic Pathology ( for the field of pathology )
  2. Cardiology ( cardiology )
  3. Dental ( dentistry )
  4. Eye Care ( Ophthalmology )
  5. IT Infrastructure ( technical infrastructure )
  6. Laboratory ( laboratory medicine )
  7. Patient Care Coordination (cross- facility treatment chains )
  8. Patient Care Devices ( communication of device data )
  9. Pharmacy ( pharmacy including prescription of drugs )
  10. Quality, Research and Public Health ( quality assurance, research and public health )
  11. Radiation Oncology ( radiation therapy )
  12. Radiology ( radiology )

Within a technical framework, the work flow from the real world is described in the profiles, e.g. B. patient admission, examination request, examination on a modality, storage, distribution and assessment of an X-ray image and drug administrations. The communication processes between different information systems and actors are defined.

A profile has certain roles or functions ( actors ). A single computer system can have multiple roles, e.g. B. he can be the actor of the image distribution and the actor of the image archiving. Transactions are defined between the actors . A transaction can be, for example, the request for certain data or the notification of a status . It describes exactly from which steps and via which interfaces the information is to be transported. The same transaction can occur in multiple profiles, even in different frameworks. For example, the "Patient Registration" transaction occurs in almost all frameworks.

Companies can guarantee the conformity of their products to one or more IHE profiles in the form of so-called integration statements .

Connectathon

Once a year IHE-USA, IHE-Europe and IHE-Japan organize a so-called Connectathon (also spelled Connect-a-thon). At a Connectathon, manufacturers and software developers have the opportunity to test the IHE profiles they support with one another. The prerequisite for participation is a successful test run against reference software (e.g. MESA tools ) provided by IHE.

See also

  • DICOM - International communication standard in radiology
  • HL7 - industry standard for data exchange between hospital information systems
  • OASIS - industry standard for the exchange of electronic business data
  • IHE PDI - Portable Document Imaging

Web links

swell

  • IHE Around the World, by Paul Vegoda ( PDF )

Individual evidence

  1. ^ IHE Technical Frameworks. IHE International, 2016, accessed November 20, 2016 .