ProfessionalGate 1.6 recently passed IHE conformance tests at the European IHE Connect-a-thon in Berlin

by Paul Higgins, ICW Developer Network
July 12, 2007

Connect-a-thon is a week long interoperability testing event held by Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE). It allows vendors to test the interoperability of their products with one another. ProfessionalGate 1.6 from InterComponentWare AG (ICW), passed IHE conformance tests at the European IHE Connect-a-thon in Berlin (April 2007). ICW is actively engaged in IHE to ensure that its networking solutions can efficiently and securely exchange data with existing systems in the healthcare sector. The rest of this article will look at what IHE is, the IHE Technical Framework and the Connect-a-thon event. It also explains the integration statement and the profiles supported by ICW. This document is aimed at readers new to the IHE and its terminology

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) is an initiative from the healthcare industry and healthcare professionals to improve the way computer systems share information. The aim of the initiative is to achieve a vendor-neutral interoperability of Healthcare information systems based on established standards such as HL7 and DICOM. One of the founding members of IHE Germany was Alexander Ihls, head of the ICW ProfessionalGate product line.

In particular IHE promotes:

• Integration
  – Stimulates the integration of information systems in health care
•  Using Standards
  – Supports the use of existing standards rather than defining new standards
•  Quality of Information
  – Ensures all required information for medical decisions is both correct and available.

It supports these aims through an iterative process. Initially common interoperability problems are identified by IHE. It identifies relevant standards and defines how to apply them to address the problems. These definitions are documented in IHE integration profiles. The integration profiles are then implemented by vendors in their products and tested for interoperability at the annual Connect-a-thon. After completing testing a vendor can issue an integration statement.

The IHE Technical Framework consists of two parts:

• The Integration Profiles section models the business process issues and their solutions. The integration profiles show the transactions that address specific IT infrastructure requirements. This is described in Volume 1 of the IT Infrastructure Technical Framework (ITI TF-1).
• The Transactions section defines, Volume 2 of the Framework (ITI TF-2), technically how the current standards are used to solve the business problem defined in the Integration Profiles.

ICW participated in the IHE Connect-a-thon at eHealth week Berlin 2007. The Connect-a-thon is a week long interoperability testing event organized by IHE. The main aim is that a vendors’ system exchanges information with complementary systems from multiple other vendors. Vendors can participate with either a set or a subset of IHE actors from one or several profiles or with one or several applications.

The preparation for Connect-a-thon begins a number of months in advance of the event with testing. The Medical Enterprise Simulators and Analyzers (MESA) system is a set of software tools used by participating companies implementing IHE capabilities in their systems for this purpose. They provide partners with test data and test plans to allow organizations to demonstrate a baseline level of testing as they implement the IHE Technical Framework. The MESA tests must be successfully completed before a vendor can participate in a Connect-a-thon. If testing at Connect-a-thon is successfully completed the vendor can publicize this fact with an IHE Integration Statement.

IHE Integration Statements are documents published by vendors to describe the conformance of their products with the IHE Technical Framework. They identify the specific IHE capabilities a given product supports in terms of IHE actors and integration profiles (described in ITI TF-1: 2).

Integration Statements can be used to determine what level of integration a vendor states a product supports with complementary systems and what clinical and operational benefits such integration might provide. Integration Statements are intended to be used in conjunction with statements of conformance to specific standards (e.g. HL7, IETF, DICOM, W3C, etc.).

The IHE Integration Statement shows the IHE profiles and actors that are implemented by ICW components.

The ProfessionalGate Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) component implements the IHE Patient Identifier Cross-Referencing (PIX) profile. The EMPI acts as a Patient Identifier Cross-reference Manager actor. All transactions (ITI-8, ITI-9 and ITI-10) are supported.  ProfessionalGate also supports the patient identity feed transaction (ITI-8). The IHE Consistent Time profile is typically supported by enabling clock synchronization at the operating system level. For details, please refer to the IHE IT Infrastructure Technical Framework Documents.

Patient Identifier Cross-referencing for MPI: The PIX profile supports the Cross-referencing of patient identifiers from multiple Patient Identification Domains. These Cross-referenced patient identifiers can then be used by identity consumer systems to correlate information about a single patient from sources that know the patient by different identifiers. This allows a Clinician to have more complete view of the patient information.

Consistent Time: Consistent Time Profile defines mechanisms to synchronize the time base between multiple actors and computers. Various infrastructure, security, and acquisition profiles require use of a consistent time base on multiple computers. The Consistent Time Profile provides median synchronization error of less than 1 second. Configuration options can provide better synchronization. The Consistent Time profile specifies the use of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) defined in RFC 1305.

Patient Identity Cross-reference Manager: Serves a well-defined set of Patient Identification Domains. Based on information provided by in each Patient Identification Domain by a Patient Identification Source Actor, it manages the cross-referencing of patient identifiers across Patient Identification Domains.

Time Client: Establishes time synchronization with one or more Time Servers using the NTP protocol and either the NTP or SNTP algorithms. Maintains the local computer system clock synchronization with UTC based on synchronization with the Time Servers.

Actor

Actors are information systems or components of information systems that produce, manage, or act on information associated with operational activities in the enterprise.

Role

The actions of an actor in a use case

Concept

Business objects that participate in transactions

Transaction

Transactions are interactions between actors that transfer the required information through standards-based messages.

Integration Profile

An integration profile is designed for a specific domain. It describes real-world scenarios or the workflow needs of integrated systems. A set of relevant actors are defined and transactions are specified for each actor.

• Integration statement for ICW ProfessionalGate 1.6 implementation of the IHE PIX profile.
• IHE IT Infrastructure Technical Framework: Volume 1, Integration Profiles.
• IHE IT Infrastructure Technical Framework: Volume 2, Transactions.
• List of IHE Integration Statements