IHE — Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise
Overview
IHE is an international initiative that produces integration profiles, which specify precisely how health IT standards such as HL7 FHIR, DICOM, and SNOMED CT should be applied together to solve clinical interoperability problems. Founded in 1998 as a collaboration between HIMSS and the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and now governed as an independent organisation, IHE operates across radiology, laboratory, pathology, pharmacy, patient identity, document sharing, and IT infrastructure, with national deployment programmes in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia. Where standards bodies define the vocabulary and syntax of health data, IHE defines the choreography: which transactions occur in which order, which actors send and receive them, and which options are required.
Integration Profiles
IHE profiles are grouped into domain-specific technical frameworks:
- IHE ITI (IT Infrastructure) covers patient identity management, cross-enterprise document sharing, audit logging, and the FHIR-based Mobile access to Health Documents (MHD) profile used in EHDS implementations.
- IHE RAD (Radiology) covers DICOM workflow, scheduled imaging, and structured reporting.
- IHE LAB (Laboratory) covers LOINC-coded laboratory order and result exchange.
- IHE PCC (Patient Care Coordination) covers the International Patient Summary (IPS), mandated under EHDS for cross-border EHR exchange.
- IHE QRPH (Quality, Research and Public Health) covers profiles for clinical research registries and public health reporting.
Connections
- relatedTo: HL7 FHIR (IHE profiles specify how FHIR is applied in clinical workflows, such as the FHIR-based MHD profile)
- relatedTo: DICOM (IHE RAD profiles orchestrate DICOM imaging workflow, scheduling, and structured reporting)
- relatedTo: SNOMED CT (IHE profiles specify how SNOMED CT coding is used within their integration transactions)
- relatedTo: LOINC (IHE LAB profiles orchestrate LOINC-coded laboratory order and result exchange)
- relatedTo: EHDS (EHDS mandates HL7 FHIR for EHR exchange but delegates technical implementation specifics to IHE profiles; the eHealth Network and national Digital Health Authorities are adopting specific IHE profile sets for EHDS compliance)