Nine Vendors Pass Radiation Oncology Connectathon

December 17, 2009 - Nine radiation oncology equipment manufacturers passed at least one portion of interoperability at its third Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise – Radiation Oncology (IHE-RO) Connectathon, a program promoting interoperability among health information technology stakeholders. The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) reported that the following participants, Accuray, BrainLAB, Elekta, GE Healthcare, Nucletron, Philips Healthcare, Tomotherapy, Siemens Healthcare, Varian Medical Systems and MIMVista, tested the interoperability of their equipment against two new profiles at the third Connectathon was held on September 15-22, 2009, at ASTRO headquarters in Fairfax, Va. The two new profiles were: "Advanced RT Objects Interoperability" and "Integrated Positioning and Delivery Workflow," in addition to the 2007 profile, "Basic RT Objects," and the 2008 profile, "Multimodality Image Registration for Radiation Oncology." Each vendor passed at least one portion of the Connectathon, which included the aforementioned profiles and the IHE-RO test suite, which tests computer software submitted prior to the Connectathon to validate the base functionality of the products. The use of IHE-based products aims to significantly accelerate the process for defining, testing and implementing standards-based interoperability among electronic health record systems. For more information: www.astro.org