Transmural exchange of cardiology related information between two academic centers and referring hospitals using XDS(-I)

More than 50% of the patient population undergoing a therapeutic invasive procedure in an Academic center has undergone diagnostic based procedures in a referring hospital. Until recently the medical documents were on paper and CD and sent by mail, fax or taxi. In this paper we describe two different IHE-XDS(-I) solutions based on a network that facilitates the transmural exchange of documents as well as images. XDS is based on medical, industrial and internet standards. Using XDS cardiologists from different centers share rather than exchange information regarding a patient, before as well as after a therapeutic invasive procedure.