The IHE approach: Leveraging the market for eHealth products. Benefits and Synergies

1
The IHE approach Leveraging the market for
eHealth products. Benefits and Synergies
Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise

• Emmanuel Cordonnier, ETIAM
• Vendor Co-chair IHE-EuropeVendor Co-chair
  IHE-France
• Vendor Co-chair DICOM Standards Committee

2
Challenges for a vendor

• Healthcare is one of the most promising market
  for IT
• National Markets for Health IT products in Europe
  are too small to justify required RD investment
• Interoperability is not only increasingly useful
  but it becomes now a condition for survive
• IHE is the best response to these constraints

3
The vendors needs

• identify the users needs and, more, minimize
  local specificities
• make the right choice among the multiple
  standards than apply, form medical, IT or medical
  IT
• test its products with other, in different
  contexts, and prove to its client the quality of
  its product interoperability

4
IHE Synergies

• Users are defining their needs, sponsoring the
  common events, controlling the tests and making
  the IHE based RFPs
• Vendors are defining the specifications,
  selecting the standards, participating to the
  tests, claiming for integration statements and
  providing the IHE compliant products
• A balanced organization, IHE, is driving the
  IHE process

5
The IHE Process

• IHE Integration Profiles in the core of IHE
• Detailed selection of standards and options each
  solving a specific integration problem
• A growing set of effective provider/vendor agreed
  solutions
• Vendors can implement with ROI
• Providers can deploy with stability
• Process started in 1998 continuously improved

6
IHE Technical Framework

• Detailed standards implementation guides
• Cardiology
• IT Infrastructure
• Lab
• Radiology
• Patient Care Coordination

7
IHE Connect-a-thon

• 250 engineers from 15 countries
• 23 IHE monitors
• 61 vendors
• 117 systems
• gt 1 600 tests
• gt 700 vendor / actor combinations
• 5 domains
• 111 actors tested
• gt 30 Integration Profiles

IHE-Europe Connect-a-thon Barcelona, April 2006
8
European 2006 Connect-a-thon
9
IHE Cost / Benefits for Vendors

• Costs
• All Technical Framework, publication of IHE
  Integration Statement free
• Participants to the Connect-a-thon 1.5k fees
  travel software development (the real expense!)
• Contributors to the Technical framework time
  travel expenditure / t-con participation
• Benefits
• Conformance to the user demand and proof (all)
• Tests with multiple vendors, out site
  (participants)
• Access to international expertise (contributors)