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Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) is an initiative by healthcare professionals and industry to improve
electronic communication among medical systems. IHE promotes the coordinated use of established standards such as
DICOM and HL7 to address specific clinical needs in support of optimal patient care. Systems developed in accordance
with IHE communicate with one another better, are easier to implement, and enable care providers to use information
more effectively. Physicians, medical specialists, nurses, administrators and other care providers envision a day
when vital information can be passed seamlessly from system to system within and across departments and made readily
available at the point of care. IHE is designed to make their vision a reality by improving the state of systems
integration and removing barriers to optimal patient care.
The IHE was conceived by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and the Radiological
Society of North America (RSNA). The IHE brings together a wide range of stakeholders to develop the framework and
process for industry to achieve new levels of systems integration. IHE enables vendors to cooperate in implementing
standards for communication among information systems – computers, medical devices and other systems - while giving
users - clinicians, information technology professionals and engineers - an important advisory role.
The Patient Care Device Domain (PCD) is one of the newest areas in IHE, supporting the integration of patient data
from medical devices to clinical and enterprise systems. In September, 2005, the ACCE was awarded
sponsorship of the Patient Care Device (PCD) domain under IHE. In 2006, HIMSS joined with ACCE as a
co-sponsor of the PCD.
Medical devices can provide large amounts of data to the medical record, but existing processes for entering that
information are time consuming, frustrating and error prone. The PCD domain, through its committees of users and
vendors, is addressing these problems and designing a Technical Framework for future medical device interoperability.
Committee members representing vendors, clinicians, and engineers have developed a Technical Framework documenting the
requirements for interoperable communication of a wide variety of physiologic measurements. Participating companies
tested their equipment's interoperability with each other in "Connectathons" in January 2007 and 2008.
Collaborating users and developers tested systems from nine manufacturers in 2008. On display at HIMSS2008 are examples
of these efforts:
- Communication of patient physiologic data from patient-connected devices to clinical information systems and to a medical record system
- Ability to process patient identity from an HL7 ADT system and associate it with device data flows
- Ability to filter the large volumes of data from patient care devices and define a reduced flow to medical record and other systems
Among the projects for the coming year, culminating in the 2009 Connectathon and 2009 HIMSS Showcase are:
- Real-Time Plug-and-Play connectivity
- Alarm Communication Management
- Device information in HL7 v.3/CDA
- Infusion Pump Integration in Medication Management
- Rosetta Terminology Project for consistent parameter and units-of-measure coding
- Extension of existing work
The PCD invites you to participate in this exciting process. Here's how:
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