IHE

a small vendor POV

Lapo Bertini
CEO
Rasna Medical Systems

IHE Europe Tutorial

Geneva, 10 October 2006
 Company facts
• Rasna Medical Systems
– A company delivering IT solutions to the
health-care community on a B2B basis
• dedicated to support radiological routine
• producing dedicated components
• from image manager to long-term archives, from
review workstations to CD/DVD creators
• Headquarters are in Florence, Italy
• Sales offices in Norway and Spain
• Operations in Italy, Norway, Spain,
Czech Republic
IHE Europe Tutorial
Geneva, 10 October 2006
 RMS team
• Our team has a long history
– Worked as a team for some 16 years
– Went through all major changes in
industry
• First generation PACS (early 90s)
• Coming of connectivity and DICOM (mid
90s)
• Coming of integration and IHE (late 90s)

IHE Europe Tutorial

Geneva, 10 October 2006
 How it started
• At the beginning we were plagued
with integration problems
• Integration was the key issue
– Standards did exist
• Sometimes abused, sometimes misused
– Vendors talked different languages
• Total COO was uncontrollable

IHE Europe Tutorial

Geneva, 10 October 2006
 How it started
• For us, being indirect, this created
issues
– multiple dedicated interfaces
• Each customer provided its own
method of interfacing
– even variations of exisiting standards
• That meant a lot of effort
– hard to predict and impossible to
charge
IHE Europe Tutorial
Geneva, 10 October 2006
 How it started
• Luckily for us a solution was
underway
– RSNA and HIMSS sat down with a
few vendors in the USA and designed
IHE
• Based on existing standards DICOM and
HL7
• Allowing inter-vendor testing
– A 5-year mission to boldly go where
no man had gone before: real-world
integration in healthcare
IHE Europe Tutorial
Geneva, 10 October 2006
 An advantage
• We soon realised how important
this was for our business
– Adoption of a single “philosophy”
– A straight-forward integration with our
customers
– Testing integration with our customers
before even having business with
them
– Smoother deployments

IHE Europe Tutorial

Geneva, 10 October 2006
 Our IHE history
• First participated at IHE in the USA
in 1999
– Connect-a-thon and demonstration in
Chicago (RSNA)
• Since 2000 IHE has spread
“operations” in Europe
– Connect-a-thon and demonstration in
Paris (JFR)

IHE Europe Tutorial

Geneva, 10 October 2006
 Our IHE history
• We’ve taken part in a total of 13
connect-a-thons since 1999
– 6 in the USA
• 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004
– 7 in Europe
• 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005,
2006
• In 2002 turned “contributors” to IHE
– Contributed substantially to PDI
integration profile
IHE Europe Tutorial
Geneva, 10 October 2006
 What then..
• IHE development is part of our R&D
process
– Frame of reference
– Model
• All pieces of software we developed
and tested under IHE are part of
marketed products

IHE Europe Tutorial

Geneva, 10 October 2006
 IHE value
• IHE has brought major assets to
our business
– vendor-neutral integration
• We finally are able to discuss and
solve integration
– from a “neutral” technical standpoint
– …and with inter-vendor testing

IHE Europe Tutorial

Geneva, 10 October 2006
 IHE value
• Effort for custom integration has
been eliminated
• Gained ability to test
• Has created a new “philosophy”
– Answers can be found in the TF

IHE Europe Tutorial

Geneva, 10 October 2006
• Thanks for your attention
• Any questions?

www.rasnamedical.com

IHE Europe Tutorial

Geneva, 10 October 2006