Why is IHE needed?
Optimal patient care requires efficient access to all relevant information. Despite the advanced state of technology, however, healthcare enterprises have not yet begun to realize the full potential of computer systems to reduce medical errors, improve the efficiency of care providers and enhance the overall quality of clinical care. To do so requires a framework for information sharing that meets the needs of care providers as well as patients–and gains acceptance among the companies that build the systems they rely on. Standards provide the basis for such a framework, but alone do not solve the problem. In any standard there are gaps, options, room for conflicting interpretations. No standard maps perfectly to the complex and ever-changing information domain of a healthcare enterprise. Filling the gap between standards and systems integration has, until now, required expensive, site-specific interface development. To close that gap a process for building a detailed framework for the
