Connectathon Organization and Execution
This page Connectathon provides a very broad overview of IHE Connectathons and includes information about participating in exiting events. The audience for the information presented below includes organizations that wish to start and host their own Connectathon.
Who Can Sponsor a Connectathon?
Many Connectathons are sponsored and run by a national deployment committee. In the case of Europe, IHE Europe is the overall sponsor and much of the logistics are left to a deployment committee at the country level. Examples of countries that have executed Connectathons at the national level include (as of 2020.01.01):
- Austria
- China
- France
- Germany
- Italy
- Korea
- Luxembourg
- Netherland
- Spain
- Switzerland
- Turkey
- United Kingdom
- United States
These IHE Connectathons will typically test profiles in more than one IHE Domain based on national or regional interests.
Some IHE Domains run Connectathons that are specific to their domain. They may find that they have international participation and would prefer to run events that are targeted to their domain rather than having a regional focus. Domains that have run Connectathons include:
- Eye Care
- Radiation Oncology
Why Do You Want to Run a Connectathon?
There are a number of reasons for organizations to sponsor and run Connectathons. Some of these are:
- Interoperability testing at the national, regional or domain level is a benefit to the industry
- A country or region is preparing to roll out new initiatives, and the Connectathon will serve as a place to test IHE profiles that are important to those initiatives.
- This might include brand new profiles or existing profiles.
- Public demonstrations of IHE profiles at conferences require IHE testing in advance of the conference for quality reasons.
- A domain that is expanding profiles may desire to have participants test the new features.