Integration Profiles: The Key to Integrated Systems

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Implementing integrated information systems can be complex, expensive and frustrating. Healthcare professionals seeking to acquire or upgrade systems do not have a convenient, reliable way of specifying a level of adherence to communication standards sufficient to achieve truly efficient interoperability. Great progress has been made in establishing such standards—DICOM and HL7, notably, are now highly advanced. But a gap persists between the standards that make interoperability possible and the actual implementation of integrated systems. To fill in that gap has, until now, required expensive, site-specific interface development to integrate even standards-compliant systems.

The IHE initiative is designed to bridge the gap. Under IHE healthcare professionals, including members of its sponsoring organizations, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), identify the integration capabilities they need to work efficiently in providing optimal patient care. Representatives of leading imaging and information systems companies then reach consensus on a specific implementation of established communication standards—DICOM, HL7, and potentially others—that provides those capabilities. Their selections are recorded in the IHE Technical Framework, a detailed resource for the implementation of standards that is freely available to the whole industry. The Technical Framework is open to public comment and is proven via an industry-wide testing and implementation process. The process works by annual cycles, expanding the scope of integration capabilities each year.

IHE Integration Profiles provide a common language for purchasers and vendors to discuss integration needs of healthcare enterprises and the integration capabilities of products. They are particularly useful for writing the integration portions of purchasing specifications. The goal for most healthcare organizations is to implement practical capabilities such as distributed access to diagnostic images or smooth departmental workflow. Integration Profiles allow communication about those high-level capabilities while referencing the underlying technical precision necessary to make them work. They give purchasers a tool that reduces the difficulty, cost and anxiety associated with implementing integrated systems.

IHE Integration Profiles organize and leverage the integration capabilities that can be achieved by coordinated implementation of communication standards. They do not replace conformance to standards, and users should continue to request that vendors provide statements of their conformance to relevant standards, such as DICOM and HL7.

Integration Profiles rather provide a more precise definition of how standards are implemented. They define a specific implementation of standards that are designed to meet identified clinical needs. The IHE implementation of standards is also broadly supported by industry partners, carefully documented, reviewed and tested.

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