At previous meetings of the RSNA and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), vendor demonstrations of the societies' Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) initiative have displayed all of the promise and power IHE holds for PACS buyers. In Year 4, however, organizers will emphasize education and the promotion of IHE's practical benefits.
"We're moving this year from thinking of this as a demonstration project to really showing how these capabilities are being implemented in real projects and real institutions," said Christopher Carr, RSNA's director of informatics.
As part of this shift, IHE will educate attendees in two venues at the show in lieu of traditional vendor demonstrations. In booth #1309 in Hall A of the technical exhibit hall, an IHE theater will provide information and tools to help users acquire and implement integrated image and information management systems.
A 10-minute multimedia presentation will be shown twice an hour, providing a high-level overview of IHE. Committee members will be on hand to answer questions and direct visitors to educational opportunities in the booth, including IHE user success stories.
Attendees will also be able to pick up IHE educational materials, including a document that describes the IHE integration profiles and their clinical and operational significance, Carr said. Another handout, the product evaluation worksheet, can be used to ask vendors about their products' specific IHE functionality.
Meanwhile, IHE will maintain its presence in the infoRAD area in a second venue: Hall D-1 of Lakeside Center. Forty-four targeted presentations will be given in the IHE classroom all week, directed at specific audiences such as radiologists, radiology administrators, technologists, systems integrators, and developers, Carr said.
A "What's new in IHE" talk, given Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 9:15-10 a.m., will discuss new additions to the exhibit.
Year 4 additions
Three new integration profiles were added in April: postprocessing workflow, charge posting, and basic security. The postprocessing workflow profile describes mechanisms to automate distributed postprocessing of images and computer-aided detection.
IHE's first foray into the financial domain -- charge posting -- offers a way to handle transactions regarding account management, such as sharing patient account numbers and procedural billing information. Basic security allows institutions to consolidate audit trails on user activity across several interconnected systems (such as between PACS and RIS or RIS and HIS) in a secure manner.
The IHE committees also completed enhancements to IHE's scheduled workflow profile, adding an exception-management option. This new option describes how the imaging modality and other systems handle errors -- such as an incorrect worklist entry -- that originate at the modality.
Another addition to scheduled workflow -- assisted acquisition protocol setting -- allows the order filler (RIS), image manager, and modalities to manage acquisition protocols used in the imaging department, and to enable automated posting of billing charges.
While the vendor demonstration format has changed, the testing and implementation process has not, Carr said. Holding to tradition, participating firms had to complete the annual IHE Connectathon held in October.
Thirty-six vendors will participate in IHE in 2002, a slight increase from last year's total. The trend is encouraging, given the level of vendor consolidation over the past year, Carr said. Some cardiology-focused firms even participated in the Connectathon this year.
As an added benefit to end users, the list of participating IHE vendors posted on the RSNA and HIMSS' Web sites will soon include links to IHE integration statements, detailing the IHE capabilities of specific products, Carr said. Availability is expected by the start of the RSNA show.
An IT thrust
The participation of IS vendors in IHE has historically fallen short of expectations, but that may change soon. An IT infrastructure committee is being created to spearhead the initiative's expansion into interdepartmental information sharing and enterprise-wide infrastructure issues.
This committee will tackle issues such as the master patient index, security issues, and building the electronic medical record, encompassing tasks such as general-purpose reporting and workflow, Carr said.
"There is a pretty strong impetus coming forward from that group, and really a stronger representation of the enterprise IT (industry) than there has been previously," he said.
Still in the formation stage, this IT infrastructure committee will eventually launch its own planning and technical committees, and work in parallel with existing IHE planning and technical committees. Those current committees will now focus specifically on radiology issues, according to Carr.
The IHE committees are still interested in expanding their focus into other clinical disciplines, such as cardiology, lab, and pharmacy, Carr said.
By Erik L. Ridley
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
November 18, 2002
Related Reading
IHE expands into new domains in Year 4, April 3, 2002
IHE boosts systems integration prospects, January 30, 2002
IHE to consolidate early activities in Year 3, November 25, 2001
IHE looks for more participation by HIS vendors, other specialties, February 6, 2001
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