Event+overview


 * IHE Background: **

IHE is not a product, it is an industry association where vendors and organizations representing your customer base work together to create practical, open, multivendor, standards based solutions to complex connectivity problems, and see the results in the marketplace. IHE Australia is the local deployment arm of IHE – we are also vendors, clinicians and health organizations who are working at the local level to achieve these goals. We do this because it is good business!, and good for healthcare outcomes. To be effective IHE in Australia needs the participation of vendors who have made a corporate commitment to IHE at the international and local levels to support the implementation of IHE in their products and the marketplace.

Head office for many of us is a long way away, and so here are a few points about why your company is already involved and how IHE works.

IHE is about creating interoperability profiles (via customer participation and vendor technical resources). IHE profiles work and are implemented worldwide, and we are seeing an increasing emphasis and reference to them in RFTs and standards (e.g. RANZCR practice standards, and mammography quality assurance).

[|e.g. Google map of XDS implementations.]

A Showcase is a marketing opportunity for vendors products to communicate and interoperate with a number of other vendors to deliver a total service to the customer. It is also a statement of support for the use of IHE profiles in tenders and purchasing processes, providing participating vendors with the capacity to deliver “a price to win” (as almost all of the interfacing risks are removed). Showcases have proven immensely popular at recent health IT and professional conferences, consistently being seen to create the most booth traffic, with secondary business coming to the main marketing booth at the same event, doubling the marketing pull and providing credibility. For vendors who can not participate in an event, the showcase is a solid cost effective footprint. Showcases are marketing exercises and to market in Australia/Asia/Pacific you have to be there – just doing the main show at HIMSS USA will not reach the local market.

A Connectathon is an engineering event (with a one day public education and open day) designed to bring vendor implementation staff together to test their conformance with IHE profiles and to enable preparation for the following Showcase. . While Connectathon participation is not required to claim conformance with IHE profiles, however it helps credibility and is a rehearsal for the Showcase. While passing at any IHE Connectathon (Europe, USA, Australia) is a tick of approval., being at your local Connectathon enables you to work with other local vendors to iron out minor issues and build relationships at the technical level which are invaluable when problems occur during implementations. With adequate preparation and on call support it is not necessary to bring in resources from the international development hubs; for mature products the local support and installation team should have all the skills required – just like a customer install. Your engineers will appreciate the opportunity to have their skills levels raised and to work with colleagues from other companies in a common cause – making everyone’s life easier and improving customer service, patient safety, and reducing costs.


 * Techie Note: ** IHE is working on setting up a standing connectathon on the cloud. This will enable vendors to collaborate on setting up a standing demonstration for customers and smaller events and to participate in multiple showcases, if desired, while minimising the additional preparation.