IHE
Background

IHE began in 1998 with the mutual realisation by the US organisations HIMSS and RSNA that, through cooperative efforts, they could promote a higher level of interoperability among imaging and information systems.

Both organisations were aware that public events could help drive the integration process by encouraging the participation of vendors and raising the awareness of users and purchasers. They convened a working group of their key members, industry representatives, standards experts and others. This group outlined an approach that led, a year later, to the formation of the IHE Planning and Technical committees. These committees have worked continuously and intensively since that time.

IHE runs annual week-long test sessions in North America, Europe, and Asia under the auspices of IHE International. Suppliers must demonstrate that their healthcare software can interoperate successfully with the software of other suppliers to support certain basic healthcare tasks as specified in the IHE Integration Profiles Technical Framework documents. During the structured peer-peer testing standards-based interoperability is tested against marketplace “use cases or scenarios” and verified by independent IHE Monitors, experts in particular fields.

These annual test sessions are called ‘IHE Connectathons®’. Health organisations can be confident that systems purchased from companies whose software has passed the relevant tests will interoperate as specified. Successful tests are published on the appropriate IHE Connectathon results database.