The 2006 World of Health IT Interoperability Showcase invited technology users, buyers, vendors, providers or healthcare regulators to attendee educational sessions provided by Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) www.ihe-europe.org.
Policymakers realize now that the difficulties to achieve interoperability between clinical healthcare IT applications is a major barrier to improving quality and efficiency as we evolve towards a more patient centric healthcare system based on an Electronic Healthcare Record. The interoperability foundations for such a new HIT market have been laid by an open and efficient collaborative between a broad range of healthcare IT users and vendors. This process and initiative is called Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE).
IHE in Europe promotes interoperability between IT systems used by medical centers, ambulatory care, healthcare professionals, and healthcare networks. IHE in Europe envisages a seamless flow of relevant information between IT systems of different vendors, achieving interoperability between different IT environments by applying existing standards for IT in healthcare.
Interoperability is built around a core of common requirements -- taking differences between EU Member States into account --but enabling manufacturers to market their products at the European and even global level with only minor variations. To this end, IHE in Europe maintains close contacts with similar initiatives in North America, Japan and other parts of the world.
Please visit the showcase to see how IHE develops and publishes detailed frameworks for implementing established data standards to meet specific healthcare needs and supports testing, demonstration and educational activities to promote the deployment of these frameworks by vendors and users. The deployment activities, which continue to evolve and grow, are generally national or regional and domain specific in scope. National and regional IHE initiatives are formed to support and oversee these activities. European participating countries include:
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Israel
- Italy
- Norway
- Spain
- Sweden
- The Netherlands
- United Kingdom
