Implementation

General Implementation Guidance is provided on this page for people trying to implement software/systems that support IHE Profiles.

Profile implementation guidance is available for some specific Profiles.

Deployment Project Summaries outline several real-world IHE implementation/deployment projects.

Implementation Guidance

Change Proposals reflect modifications to a released Technical Framework or Supplement. It is important for implementors to monitor CPs and keep their implementations up to date.

Implementation Guidance for Participants in the North American Connectathon is maintained on a separate website but much of it is also useful to implementers who are not participating in the Connectathon. It is organized by Domain and Profile.

Implementation Tools

Development Tools

This section lists toolkits and reference implementations available in the public domain.

Connectathon Management Guidance

The North American and European Connectathons are multi-domain events that have evolved over time but with a common set of managers. These managers have a common understanding of procedures, tests and tools. There are also other Connectathons that are held globally that are focused on a smaller set of integration profiles from possibly only one or two domains but also have managers with domain experience and institutional knowledge about how best to run those events.

IHE has provided limited training in a class room setting and also at the North American and European Connectathons. There has not been summary documentation to provide guidance on how to start and organize a new Connectathon.

The page on this wiki Connectathon Organization and Management will serve as a place to collection the guidance one would need to organize a new event. You can read disclaimers on that page.

Test Tools for Connectathon Managers

The section Test Tools below describes a set of tools that are useful for individuals who want to test various IHE Integration Profiles. Software engineers who implement IHE Integration Profiles will likely select the tools that are relevant to their implementation. A unifying event is an IHE Connectathon. Connectathon Managers use many of the tools below to both manage Connectathons and test specific profiles. The table that follows lists a set of functions and how they are managed at various Connectathons.

Function	IHE Europe Connectathon	IHE USA Connectathon	IHE Japan Connectathon	IHE RO (one domain)	IHE Eyecare (one domain)
System Registration	Gazelle	Gazelle	Gazelle	Other	Gazelle
Test definitions / management / execution	Gazelle	Gazelle	Gazelle	Other	Gazelle
Monitor evaluation / test results	Gazelle	Gazelle	Gazelle	Other	Gazelle
Patient Registration: Affinity Domain Testing	Gazelle	Gazelle		NA	Gazelle
Departmental Orders, Modality Worklist Provider	Gazelle	Gazelle		NA	Gazelle
Conformance Tests: XDS family	NIST XDS Tools	NIST XDS Tools		NA	NA
Conformance Tests: CDA Documents	NIST CDA Validation Gazelle	NIST CDA Validation Gazelle		NA	NA
Conformance Tests: PIX / PDQ messages	Gazelle	NIST HL7 V2 tools Gazelle		NA	NA
Conformance Tests: PCD messages	NIST PCD tools	NIST PCD tools	NIST PCD tools	NA	NA
Conformance Tests: General HL7 V2 messages	Gazelle	Gazelle		NA	NA
Conformance Tests: HL7 FHIR(R) resources		FHIR Read Write Server		NA	NA

Validation Tools for Connectathon Participants

IHE has developed a growing body of software tools to facilitate testing and implementation of IHE Integration Profiles in healthcare information technology systems. These tools are available for download and licensed by their developers for free use. The links below point to sources with further information and direct access to download the tools.

A profile-by-profile Index to Preconnectathon Test Software is available here. These are the tools used as part of the pre-Connectathon testing process. They are referenced by pre-Connectathon test descriptions with explicit instructions.

A more general list of useful tools and tool kits, many of which are used for different aspects of IHE testing, was assembled by IHE Europe as part of the HITCH project.

Test Tools by Profile and Actor

The list of tools above gives you the location of the software and a general description of the scope of the tools. For testing a specific IHE profile, you may find it helpful to use these links.

IHE Tools by Domain/Profile lists each Integration Profile and provides links to the software and documentation.

Pre-Connectathon/MESA Software lists each IHE Actor with links to the software and documentation.

In some cases you will find that two different software implementations are used to test a single actor.

Connectathon Milestones

Need to add a table, updated annually, of the Connectathon events in Europe, North America, Japan, etc.

See Also

Mailing Lists exist for all IHE Domains, most IHE Regions and most implementation projects (such as IHE Connectathons and IHE Demonstrations).

Testing and Tools Committee