The Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (
IHE) Eye Care initiative brings together modality vendors, Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendors, image management system vendors, physicians, hospitals, departments of ophthalmology in hospitals, etc., to define the actors and transactions that are required to capture, store, retrieve, process, communicate, etc., information in support of the delivery of medicine and the business activities essential to the economic survival of those organizations.
The most fundamental benefits expected from integrated healthcare enterprises are economic reductions in the total cost of service delivery and quality of care improvements available from the accessibility of EHR information used to optimize care and the utilization of resources required to deliver that care. Plug-to-plug compatibility and interoperable product alternatives should assist decision makers in selecting instruments, EHR systems, etc., that work together seamlessly without the need for special customized efforts and costs for installation and support.
IHE Eye Care Technical Co-Chair: Jim Riggi (Medflow, Inc.)
IHE Eye Care Planning Committee Co-Chairs: Michael Schmidt (oiPACS and Medflow, Inc.), Mark Horton, OD, MD (Indian Health Service)
Feedback on the IHE Eye Care Showcase:
"I have visited the IHE area both in 2006 and 2007. I have found it extremely helpful and comforting to see that all of these digital testing instruments from different vendors can be connected so that the tests may be accessed from computer terminals in different parts of the office. And I was pleased to see that the format and usability seemed to improve from 2006 to 2007. We are all looking at significant capital expense to integrate EHR, without a clear indication of which systems will:
work efficiently in a doctors office - we have all heard horror stories of offices that implemented EHR, only to abandon the project a few months later because they were too time consuming
work effectively in a two office environment where offices will need to be connected over the Internet
be cost effective and reasonably priced
come from a company with long term staying power - many of us remember the ramifications of Alcon abandoning the Practice Management System business. And there are Practice Management Systems that seem to be "Mom and Pop" companies, depending on a few key personnel to keep the business going.
So, I applaud and appreciate your efforts to present industry solutions to interconnection and to show EHR systems which hopefully have some staying power."
Bruce H. Cohen, M.D.
The Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (
DICOM) is a standard for the communication of medical images and associated information. This standard has been developed to meet the needs of manufacturers and users of medical imaging equipment for interconnection of devices on standard networks.
Systematized Nomenclature for Human and Veterinary Medicine (SNOMED) was conceived from the start as a system for representing clinical information. Unlike ICD-9 and CPT4, it is not used for billing in the U.S.
If you would like more information or are interested in being involved in IHE or DICOM, contact
Flora Lum.