Almost 100 organizations and 555 engineers attended the IHE North American Connectathon 2015, held in the last week of January 2015. The Connectathon is an annual testing event sponsored by health IT group IHE USA, where  vendors, engineers, and IT architects meet for five days of interoperability testing and problem resolution.

After 16 years in Chicago, the was relocated to downtown Cleveland and the new co-located facilities of the Cleveland Convention Center and Global Center for Health Innovation, where the the HIMSS Innovation Center is based. At the event, IHE Profiles leveraging HL7 FHIR technology were tested to securely share patient data on mobile devices. In addition, HIMSS announced a new HIMSS Interoperability Services program that will include the IWG and IHE USA certification. According to organizers, 78 vendors from the connectathon will promote their success at the Interoperability Showcase at HIMSS15, where they will demonstrate more than 100 health IT systems.

“I’ve been attending IHE Connectathons for many years, as a vendor, a monitor, and an initiative lead,” said Eric Heflin, chief technology officer, Texas Health Services Authority. “The event at Cleveland this year was the best so far. Thanks to an effective and stable network, test environment, and on-site management, we accomplished successful interoperability testing. All of this was facilitated by a new (sustainable) conference center with a permanent healthcare innovation wing.”