Health informatics — IHE global standards adoption – Part 1: Process

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) is an initiative designed to stimulate the integration of electronic information systems that support the delivery of modern healthcare.

This document describes how the IHE process specifies and facilitates profiles of selected standards to support carefully defined healthcare tasks that depend on electronic information exchange. It accelerates the worldwide adoption of standards aimed at achieving interoperability between software applications within healthcare enterprises and across healthcare settings.

The Integration and Content Profiles are specified in ISO 28380-2, Health informatics — IHE global standards adoption – Part 2: Integration and content profiles.

The intended audience for this document includes IT departments of healthcare institutions; technical and marketing staff in the healthcare information technology industry; experts involved in standards development; those interested in integrating healthcare information systems and workflows; and leadership in national and regional healthcare information exchange projects.

Main sections:

· Scope

· Global standards adoption process overview

· Development process

· Deployment-validation process

· Principle and policies

· Overview of the Technical Framework

· Annex A: IHE Integration Statement template

· Annex B: IHE sponsoring organisations