IHE 2010 North America Connectathon

I wanted to share a bit about the IHE 2010 North America Connectathon that was held last week in Chicago, IL. I have been part of the IHE world since 2001 and during this tenure I have worn many hats. I was...

1. One of first Founding Planning Committee Co-Chair duties for the IT Infrastructure Domain
2. Founding Co-Chair for Interoperability Showcase Planning Committee
3. Sr. Director responsible for the North American Connectathon event along with RSNA who share the IHE USA secretariat duties. In addition, while at HIMSS, I was responsible for the IHE deployment activities for HIMSS Interoperability Showcases in North America, Europe, and Asia as well as the IHE International Secretariat duties for the four HIMSS sponsored domains:

• IT Infrastructure (ITI)
  
• Patient Care Coordination (PCC)
• Patient Care Devices (PCD)
• Quality, Research and Public Health (QRPH)

And now, I wear yet another hat of the User Stakeholder community in need of interoperable systems. As a Connectathon monitor this year, I am happy to report that I saw "meaningful use requirements" tested among systems using IHE profiles and HITSP Interoperability Specifications.

IHE Connectathons have been used by vendors to help develop interoperable HIT systems and by healthcare institutions and government-organized electronic health record programs around the world to design, test, acquire and implement such systems.  I look forward to seeing the scenarios demonstrating the support of  "meaningful use" at the 2010 HIMSS Interoperability Showcase to be held in Atlanta during the annual conference.

IHE national deployment organizations have been established in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the USA.  Regional deployment organizations are active in Europe and North America. 

I volunteered to help with monitor duties this year for the North American Connectathon and was assigned to be part of a team of monitors responsible for reviewing vendor compliance to the Patient Care Coordinaton (PCC) profiles. I was one of some 50 monitors led by 4 managers for the event. You will see me in my green jacket along with all the others wearing orange. Of note, my friend and partner, founding co-chair for both the showcases as well as the ITI Domain, Glen Marshall, is also in this picture (6th from the right/second row).

I do like to be unique, but this day I was not only being unique but also rebelling in support of our TN Football team who had just lost a coach the day before that made national news and the talk in Chicago.

While helping with monitor duties this past week, I had the opportunity to learn more about how Europe and Australia will be holding their own testing Connectathons and Projectathon (the newly coined term for Regional project based activities. One such example is what IHE Europe is helping epSOS with later this year). 

It was wonderful to learn how  these two countries along with many others continue to leverage the technical frameworks made freely available by IHE. Not many know that the IHE testing tools are actually a collection of open source offerings made freely available to all. 

This picture was taken of Charles Parisot, IHE Europe member representing GE Healthcare and Dr Vincent McCauley MB BS, Ph.D who is chair of IHE Australia. We discussed the various plans underway for live deployments and I provided Charles updated information for CareSpark who I am working with in my region.  CareSpark is a not-for-profit organization that has implemented an IHE/HITSP standards-based Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) that began in 2005 and is listed in the "Where in the World is XDS" google map along with deployments nationally and internationally across the globe. 

It  has been estimated that some 125 test per hour were reviewed by monitors during the week long event. I really enjoyed seeing many old friends this past week and meeting many new ones.  The Connectathon attendance was a record high this year and I continue to be inspired by all the hard work and support from all the organizations to ensure their systems are interoperable. I will be giving an update on the Connectathon events this week at the TN HIMSS Chapter meeting on January 21, 2010. I look forward to educating the stakeholders in my region as well as across the nation about what is available today and how one can leverage IHE profiles and testing tools to help test for deployment of "meaningful use" of connected healthcare. IHE members and volunteers continue to make a difference in health care today !  I look forward to seeing many of you at the HIMSS 2010 Interoperability Showcase in Atlanta in March.