Integrating the Healthcare EnterpriseIntegrating the Healthcare Enterprise

Originally Published MX September/October 2004

SPECIAL REPORT: IT IN HEALTHCARE

(IHE) is not an organization but an initiative sponsored by several leading organizations. It was started in November 1998 by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the Radiological Society of North America. Last year, the American College of Cardiology also became a sponsor.

IHE's members include experts in a wide range of healthcare fields, but the initiative is distinctive in having a more defined focus than most groups with an interest in healthcare IT. Its avowed purpose is to drive the adoption of standards across the entire healthcare universe, in order to enable health information to be passed through the entire system. Such standards are, in effect, the universal language for transmitting digital information in healthcare, and the emphasis on standards determines the IHE agenda.