Pitch for IHE International Membership

to: members of the IHE Community in Canada
from: Lynne Zucker (in my role as a board member of IHE International)

As I posted a few months ago, IHE International is asking organizations to pay modest membership fees to help to support the great work being done around the world. To-date only about 10% of the known Canadian IHE members have signed up. Please consider the IHE message below and join today if it makes sense for your organization.
thanks,
Lynne

The Vision Depends on You
Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) International has become a leader in advancing interoperability because of the commitment of organizations like yours. As we look to the future, we see room for growth. We are asking for your support to bring this vision to life.
IHE has a plan to build on the foundation we have established to enable seamless and secure access to health information, whenever and wherever needed--our 2020 Vision. The goal is to secure the resources needed to be the leading provider worldwide of guidance, testing and implementation services to achieve interoperability in health IT.
The success of this vision relies on your continued support and participation. Starting on July 1, 2015, IHE International will adopt a fee-based membership model, tiered by type and size of organization to enable all stakeholders to participate. The categories of membership and annual membership fees (in US dollars) are:
• Vendors, for-profit providers and other for-profit organizations
o Large organizations (more than 250 employees): $1,500
o Medium-sized organizations (4 to 250 employees): $500
o Smaller organizations (less than 4 employees): $250
• Not-for-profit organizations and government agencies: $500
o Humanitarian non-profit organizations and government agencies in low- and middle-income countries (as classified by WHO): $250
• Standards Development Organizations (SDOs): free reciprocal membership
Up to now IHE International has relied heavily on resources contributed by a few sponsoring organizations to support its operation. We hope you will agree that IHE has accomplished much through careful use of these resources. As it works to achieve its vision, IHE will maintain an emphasis on efficiency and cost consciousness. Your organization’s annual contribution will provide the resources needed to make IHE’s 2020 Vision a reality.
As part of the 2020 Vision campaign, renewal notices will be distributed starting in mid-June to the primary contacts of each current IHE International member organization. The success of the program is based on the expectation that current members will be able to complete conversion to this new model by October 1st. Only representatives of active member organizations will be able to take part in IHE committees and development of IHE technical specifications. Click here to learn more about the membership renewal process and the benefits of membership in IHE International.
Your membership in IHE International shows that you recognize the importance of its unique role in advancing standards-based interoperability in health information technology. IHE domain committees address specific clinical use cases, selecting the best available standards to address them and publishing detailed implementation guides--IHE profiles--describing their optimal use.
Based on these profiles, IHE deployment committees conduct interoperability testing at Connectathons and in conformity assessment programs. IHE publishes the results of these testing activities, and enables vendors to publish integration statements describing the compliance of their products with IHE profiles.
Purchasers of health IT systems--individual care sites, delivery networks and health information exchanges--get the benefit of reduced costs and faster implementation by specifying the use of IHE profiles in procurement documents. IHE profiles provide the foundation for electronic health record and health information exchange programs in countries around the world.
Thanks to the hard work of IHE participants around the world, demand for products that use IHE profiles continues to grow. The need for effective information sharing is recognized by patients, providers and leaders of health systems worldwide--and the standards-based interoperability that IHE delivers is critical to success.