The tenth annual IHE European Connectathon will be take place in Bordeaux, France, 2-16 April 2010.
The Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) interoperability testing event will bring together around 300 information technology engineers from 90 companies to enable them to assess the interoperability of applications used in health information systems.
At the IHE Connectathon all companies implementing IHE technical framework specifications in their products will have an opportunity to test their applications with systems and products from other vendors in a real-time interoperable environment.
According to the IHE, vendors who have participated in previous Connectathons said: “The cost of identifying and solving a bug during a Connectathon is about 10 times less than the cost of a bug identified on site.”
The event will include a five-day connectivity marathon and will run alongside two full-day conference programs, one focused on the progress towards interoperability in European health IT programmes and the other focused on developments in France.
Connectathons are held annually in Asia, Europe and North America. They are a joint initiative of healthcare professionals and industry to try to improve the way computer systems in healthcare share information.
According to IHE, systems developed in accordance with IHE specifications communicate with one another better, are easier to implement, and enable care providers to use information more
effectively.
The results of the Connectathon are published on the IHE website and application vendors can refer to the IHE integration statements to show compliance of their product with IHE Integration Profiles.
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