Integrating the healthcare enterprise (IHE) interoperability for cardiology: year 1 demonstration

The first interoperability demonstration of the cardiology profiles of the "Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise" (IHE) initiative was held in conjunction with the annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) in March, 2005. The IHE Cardiology Planning Committee identified clinical problems to be addressed: the ability to view an ECG from anywhere in the enterprise, and the effective integration of patient, order and procedure information for echocardiography and for cardiac catheterization. The IHE Cardiology Technical Committee developed a set of integration profiles to address the retrieval and display of ECG's as well as scheduled and unscheduled echo and cath for registered and unregistered patients. The demonstration used clinical scenarios to demonstrate the integration of the participating systems: (1) emergent angioplasty (2) change of procedure room; (3) add-on mobile echo procedure; and (4) stress echo images