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IHE integration profiles have been adapted by National and Regional projects in countries such as Austria, France, Italy and The Netherlands. Download the IHE-Europe Brochure to find out how international standards are being adapted and adopted to fit regional healthcare systems.

 

The International Standards Organization (ISO) has incorporated the methods of Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) as part of the standardization for health information systems to achieve compatibility and interoperability between independent systems.

The ISO Technical Committee 215 has approved in 2007 a first technical report covering the IHE Processes and is currently developing a second document describing the Integration and Content Profiles specifications published and tested by IHE.

A third section covering testing and calibration tools, products that help in the verification of the integration profiles, will be drafted for inclusion in ISO health informatics standards in 2009.

The IHE team developing these documents for ISO's Health Informatics Data Interchange working group are Dewinder Bhachu from the PACS National Evaluation Centre at St. George's Hospital in London, and Charles Parisot, Manager for Standards and Testing with GE Healthcare.

"With this work, one could say IHE has received the blessing of ISO," said Bhachu.

"This is not new work, nor does it change what IHE does," he said. "Instead it allows ISO to point to the IHE methods for achieving interoperability in health information systems."

As an example of the reach and scope of ISO endorsement, Bhachu points to the adoption of Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standards that resulted in the ISO standard 12052 for the exchange of digital images, and information related to the production and management of those images, between both medical imaging equipment and systems concerned with the management and communication of that information.

"It took a while, but ISO 12052 has proven absolutely essential to the successful and international integration of DICOM standards that we see today," said Bhachu. ISO is the world largest standards developing organization having published more than 17,000 international standards ranging from activities such as agriculture and construction, through mechanical engineering, to medical devices, to the latest information technology developments.