Connectathons
Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) Connectathons have long been viewed as a staple of technical interoperability testing around the world. A key benefit of Connectathons is the ability to provide objective evaluation of technical specifications and to demonstrate solution portability and encapsulation.
IHE Integration Profiles are tested at Connectathons. These profiles are use-case based implementation guides built on established standards, including HL7® FHIR®, DICOM®, W3C and others. Profiles are implemented in care settings and health information exchanges around the world and describe and clarify how to use standards in an unambiguous way to solve a particular interoperability challenge.
Connectathons represent a high quality, technical conformity assessment event (quality label) where participants prove that their products have implemented industry grade integration profiles (standardized pieces of core interoperability) and that their products can successfully carry out data exchanges with other systems (concepts of plug & play). Successful participation in a Connectathon allows vendors to proudly and confidently represent their product(s) as conformed to published interoperability patterns. It also offers system integrators and health data custodians the opportunity to design data infrastructures and distribution networks with standardized capabilities conformed to by vendors.
It is much easier to design a complex eco-system from standardized pieces of functionality than it is to describe every single aspect of systems in isolation. Just like the most complex electronic systems are built from catalogs of discrete elements, integration profiles break down the complexity into manageable pieces of core functionality. System integrators, who are responsible for designing strategies and architectures that deliver interoperability ecosystems, can use this approach in their system design.
Projectathons
Projectathons are testing events that are dedicated to a specific project that uses a set of IHE profiles in their interoperability specifications. Typically, these events are organized for specifications under development or specifications focused on a limited realm (e.g., national or regional implementation). Similar to Connectathons, Projectathons bring together vendors to test and collaborate on specific use cases. The key difference between a Connectathon and Projectathon is that the outcome of the Projectathon does not result in a conformance stamp of approval for products. The intent of Projectathons is to accelerate product development, bring developers and implementers together and help identify and bridge difficult conditions in specification development to ensure development choices support interoperability and efficient business and clinical workflows.
Testing Platform
Testing for Connectathons and Projectathons make use of the IHE Gazelle testing platform. The platform allows vendors to test and prove that their products align with the published specifications. This platform has been used to support quality testing in IHE Connectathons for over 15 years worldwide.
Participation Lifecycle
Overview
One of the core principles driving the design of the Interoperability Program was a commitment to generating implementable specifications. An implementable specification is one where the sought after capabilities are testable by industry and lead to approaches where plug&play interoperability becomes a tenable target.
There are international success stories that have demonstrated wins in the area of interoperability, we see them in North America, Europe and Asia. They are based on published specifications modelled in an interoperability platform called Gazelle. The platform implements the normative specification in the form of Actors/Transactions and offers technical connectivity capabilities for vendor systems to assert and test for claims that their solutions implement complement Actors. This allows the market to self test in preparation for industry events called Connectathons where solutions can and do carry our interoperable transactions with peers from other companies. The platform also supports conformity assessment and testing so that vendors that pass these can legitimately claim support for the enacted Actor/Transaction pairs.
This practical approach has been shown to support large scale interoperability and allow for eco-system planning for policy makers and jurisdictional governments alike,
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