Web Exclusive: Nine vendors pass as ASTRO hosts third IHE-RO Connectathon
By Nicole Napoli, Publications Specialist
ASTRO is pleased to announce that nine radiation oncology equipment manufacturers passed at least one portion of interoperability at its third Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise – Radiation Oncology (IHE-RO) Connectathon.
Accuray, BrainLAB, Elekta, GE Healthcare, Nucletron, Philips, Tomotherapy, Siemens, Varian and MIMVista attended to test the interoperability of their equipment against two new profiles: “Advanced RT Objects Interoperability” and “Integrated Positioning and Delivery Workflow,” as well as the 2007 profile, “Basic RT Objects,” and the 2008 profile, “Multimodality Image Registration for Radiation Oncology.”
Each vendor passed at least one portion of the Connectathon, which included the aforementioned profiles and the IHE-RO test suite, which tests computer software submitted prior to the Connectathon to validate the base functionality of the products.
“The Connectathon is becoming more and more challenging each year because we are getting into some very advanced issues that have been plaguing physicians for years,” Bruce Curran, M.E., an IHE-RO Planning Committee member and Technical Committee co-chair, said. “By solving them across multiple vendors during profile development and resolving remaining issues during the Connectathon, we are creating solutions more effectively than if these problems had to be solved in a clinic. This in turn provides benefits to patients sooner, which is the ultimate goal of the project.”
IHE-RO was established in late 2004 as a domain of the larger Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) program, a global initiative now in its 11th year that creates the framework for passing vital health information seamlessly across multiple healthcare enterprises. IHE brings together health information technology stakeholders to implement standards for communicating patient information efficiently throughout and among healthcare enterprises by developing a framework of interoperability. Because of its proven process of collaboration, demonstration and real-world implementation of interoperable solutions, use of IHE-based products are able to significantly accelerate the process for defining, testing and implementing standards-based interoperability among electronic health record systems. In addition to radiation oncology, there are operational domains in eye care, cardiology, radiology and patient care devices, among others. The third Connectathon was held on September 15-22, 2009, at ASTRO headquarters in Fairfax, Va.
For more information on IHE-RO, visit http://wiki.ihe.net/index.php?title=Radiation_Oncology. For more information on IHE, visit www.ihe.net.
