Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE)

What is IHE? IHE is an initiative by healthcare professionals and industry to improve the way computer systems in healthcare share information. IHE promotes the coordinated use of established standards such as DICOM and HL7 to address specific clinical needs in support of optimal patient care. Systems developed in accordance with IHE communicate with one another better, are easier to implement, and enable care providers to use information more effectively. Physicians, medical specialists, nurses, administrators and other care providers require vital information be passed seamlessly from system to system within and across departments and made readily available at the point of care, in other words enabling systems interoperability. IHE is designed to make this a reality by improving the state of systems integration and removing barriers to optimal patient care.

Why is IHE needed? Optimal patient care requires efficient access to all relevant information. Despite the advanced state of technology, however, healthcare enterprises have not yet begun to realize the full potential of computer systems to reduce medical errors, improve the efficiency of care providers and enhance the overall quality of clinical care. To do so requires a framework for information sharing that meets the needs of care providers as well as patients–and gains acceptance among the companies that build the systems they rely on.

Standards provide the basis for such a framework, but alone do not solve the problem. In any standard there are gaps, options, room for conflicting interpretations. No standard maps perfectly to the complex and ever-changing information domain of a healthcare enterprise. Filling the gap between standards and systems integration has, until now, required expensive, site-specific interface development. To close that gap a process for building a detailed framework for the implementation of standards is needed. IHE provides that process.

Who is IHE? IHE is sponsored by associations of healthcare professionals around the world and has welcomed participation by many of the leading manufacturers of imaging and information systems. Volunteer members of these associations, including clinicians and other care providers, healthcare executives and information technology experts, play a key role in guiding the development of IHE and determining priorities for integration. They collaborate with vendor representatives to identify obstacles to integration and optimal care and remove them by developing and implementing standards-based solutions for information sharing.

IHE International, the organization overseeing the development and publication of IHE Technical Frameworks worldwide, is sponsored by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). IHE has expanded continually and developed strong international support. Canada Health Infoway is an IHE Benefactor member, committing to IHE’s mission, independence and sustainability.

How do I use IHE? How you use IHE depends on your specific role and your specific needs. Clinicians and administrators should be aware of the clinical and operational benefits that can be realized through IHE Integration Profiles and encourage their departments to demand those capabilities when acquiring or upgrading systems. Information technology professionals should know how to use IHE Integration Profiles in RFPs and purchasing agreements and should familiarize themselves with sections of the Technical Framework that describe interfaces between systems under their supervision. Specifying IHE integration content as requirements specifications, along with conformance testing reduces risk and frames vendor accountability. Healthcare information technology solution developers and systems integrators should have a detailed knowledge of the sections of the Technical Framework relevant to their systems, these technical resources are developed to address clinical and informatics use cases in the real world.

If IHE is about achieving a common language for integration, then an analogy can be made to how one uses various resources to understand a foreign language…

Standards such as DICOM and HL7 provide the vocabulary and basic grammar for the language of integration. The Technical Framework organizes these elements somewhat like a language textbook, fitting together the most relevant pieces and eliminating confusion and ambiguity. Integration Profiles are like a phrase book for essential communications. They further organize the language to enable vendors and purchasers to communicate about systems integration-even if DICOM or HL7 is not their native language.

IHE can make systems integration faster, more efficient, less expensive and more successful. Standards-based integration solutions like those defined in IHE are flexible, durable, easier to implement and less expensive to maintain than proprietary methods. Achieving systems integration through IHE is a dramatic step toward providing optimal patient care.

IHE Process - Engaging HIT Stakeholders in a Proven Process

IHE brings together users and developers of healthcare information technology (HIT) in an annually recurring four-step process:

1. Clinical and technical experts define critical use cases for information sharing.

2. Technical experts create detailed specifications for communication among systems to address these use cases, selecting and optimizing established standards.

3. Industry implements these specifications called IHE Profiles in HIT systems.

4. IHE tests vendors’ systems at carefully planned and supervised events called Connectathons.

Integration Profiles: A Framework for Interoperability

IHE Profiles provide a standards-based framework for sharing information within care sites and across networks. They address critical interoperability issues related to information access for care providers and patients, clinical workflow, security, administration and information infrastructure. Each profile defines the actors, transactions and information content required to address the clinical use case by referencing appropriate standards.

See capsule descriptions of current IHE profiles in each domain. IHE Profiles are compiled into IHE Technical Frameworks-detailed technical documents that serve as implementation guides and Technical Frameworks freely available online.

Connectathons: Testing Interoperability and Conformance

IHE has been testing the interoperability of HIT systems for more than a decade. At IHE Connectathons held regularly in several locations internationally, trained technical experts supervise testing of vendor systems, making use of advanced testing software developed by IHE and several partner organizations. More than 250 vendors worldwide have implemented and tested products with IHE capabilities.

What is the InfoCentral IHE Canada Community?

The InfoCentral IHE Canada Community is a place where health care professionals, the health information industry, and government administrators collaborate to improve the way health care technologies and systems share information.

To become a member of this community select Join Group in the Group Menu.

If you have an idea for a subject, a community working group or project that will drive interoperability forward, let us know! Send your suggestions

LEADER

David Kwan, IHE Canada Chair
(Insygnia Consulting Inc.)

KEY RESOURCES

IHE Resources

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