Connectathon 2009 draws new companies, new participants

Europe’s largest interoperability event drew 230 health information technology engineers, system programmers and 10 new companies for five days of testing that saw a significant increase in use of profiles for cross-enterprise and cross-community document sharing.

For this ninth annual European 'connectivity marathon' the host IHE-Austria turned a former streetcar depot into Vienna's most intensive internet hub with 280 hookups and 11 wireless local area network hotspots. Long rows of specially wired tables were filled by 230 health information technology engineers and programmers for five days as they pushed and pulled data in thousands of tests between systems to validate interoperability.

In the testing center, profiles for sharing clinical documents overtook the traditionally strong domain of Radiology again this year while the new Cross-Community Access (XCA) profile jumped from a single system test in 2008 to eight companies testing their conformance this year.

"Considering this is the second year for XCA, this participation might be considered an explosion of interest for an IHE profile," said Eric Poiseau, the IHE European Technical Manager who organizes and manages Connectathon testing through INRIA, the French national institute for research in computer science and control, operating under the dual authority of the Ministry of Research and the Ministry of Industry.

Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS) profiles were tested by 27 vendors, he reported, with another 10 vendors testing Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing for Imaging (XDSi).

More Connectathon results can be reviewed on the website.

Poiseau also reported seven vendors tested systems against the new Radiation Exposure Monitoring (REM) profile that facilitates the collection and distribution of information about estimated patient radiation exposure resulting from imaging procedures.

"This is a very big deal for a profile being introduced for the first time at a Connectathon," he said.

"This profile was developed as a result of the European Directive Euratom and the American College of Radiology Dose Whitepaper and is a great example of how industry can respond to a regulatory change using IHE by gathering all the actors around the table and then providing the tools to act quickly," said Poiseau. A total of 73 companies registered for Connectathon 2009, with 10 companies participating for the first time. In all 94 systems were tested for interoperability.

Also newor this year’s Connectathon was the Gazelle software used for registration of participating companies and the subsequent management of required configurations and then test resulting.

Gazelle is progressively replacing the KUDU software and the pre-Connectathon MESA testing tools to manage the Connectathon, provide vendors and healthcare enterprises with an internal platform for testing products, and provide a virtual connectathon testing platform.

"Gazelle ran very well and greatly streamlined the process for participants," Poiseau reported.