IHE European Connectathon: Cross-border network expands
One month after entering into operational mode for real-world exchanges of patient summaries, the large-scale project Smart Open Services for European Patients (epSOS) was back at the European Connectathon to introduce new member nations to the expanding network.
Estonia, Finland, Portugal, Switzerland and epSOS beneficiary SRDC were on hand for this year's connectivity marathon. Two other nations, Italy and Sweden, participated remotely in the testing for interoperability between national systems. Two vendors with systems for the epSOS network also participated, including Tiani Spirit that first supported the nation-to-nation interface.
The IHE European Connectathon provides an opportunity for epSOS participating countries to validate their implementations of IHE profiles in the context of the epSOS use case.
"It has been a very big year for epSOS, from the Connectathon in Pisa through the successful launch of real-world, cross-border exchanges in April, and now the successful testing of new systems here at Connectathon in Bern," said epSOS Coordinator Fredrik Linden.
More than 16 countries already participating in the epSOS program also sent national coordinators for the epSOS program to a meeting at the European Connectathon in Bern to plan extensions of services using the connected system.
"As an example, one future direction for epSOS is to return summary medical information to the patient in their home country," said Linden.
Among the IHE Profiles used by the 23 different European countries participating in epSOS these include the epSOS led IHE integration profile called Cross-Community Fetch (XCF).
IHE's open and collaborative process of publishing and testing integration profiles ensures interoperability among health information and communication technology systems.
For more information on IHE-Europe please visit: www.ihe-europe.net.
About Connectathon
Connectathon is the healthcare IT industries largest interoperability testing event, the culmination of a detailed development process based on the IHE Technical Frameworks that promote the adoption of standards-based interoperability by vendors and users of healthcare information systems. Once each year Connectathons held in Europe, North America, Australia and Asia provide developers an opportunity to demonstrate conformance to internationally accepted integration profiles that assure any IHE-compliant system can share data and interoperate with any other IHE compliant system.
About IHE-Europe
IHE-Europe is the European organisation of the international IHE organisation. ‘Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise’ (IHE) is a joint initiative of 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, XML and HL7 to address specific clinical needs in support of optimal patient care. Systems developed in accordance with IHE specifications communicate with one another better, are easier to implement, and enable care providers to use information more effectively. For more information, please visit www.ihe-europe.net
14.06.2012
