HEARTLAB CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER LEADS IHE CARDIOLOGY COMMITTEE
Dr. Jonathan Elion Co-chairs IHE Technical Committee for Cardiology
- Press release
- WESTERLY, RI
- May 24, 2004 12:43
Heartlab, Inc., an industry leader in the development of cardiac imaging and information management software and the integration of cardiac imaging network systems.
Heartlab, Inc., an industry leader in the development of cardiac imaging and information management software and the integration of cardiac imaging network systems, today announced that its co-founder and Medical Director has been selected for a leadership position in the Cardiology initiative of "Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise" (IHE).
Jonathan Elion, M.D., F.A.C.C., has been selected as co-chair of IHE's Cardiology Technical Committee. The IHE began in 1997 and is sponsored jointly by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). The organization is a collaborative effort among medical associations to improve the way computer systems share and manage healthcare data. The IHE's new Cardiology efforts are co-sponsored by the American College of Cardiology (ACC).
As the co-chairs of IHE's Cardiology Technology Committee, Dr. Elion from Heartlab and Harry Soloman from GE Medical Systems, will lead the group responsible for defining the technical framework requirements for the integration of electronic information, such as medical images and patient information. Dr. Elion is also a member of the IHE's Cardiology Planning Committee that establishes the direction and scope of integration activities, runs educational workshops for participating vendors, and sponsors product interoperability demonstrations.
The IHE cardiology technical committee creates the detailed technical framework for information interchange based on existing healthcare IT standards. The technical framework helps vendors develop and test interoperability of products for capturing, managing and archiving medical images and patient data.
"Collecting, coordinating, and sharing images and information from a variety of sources is essential for optimal patient care and decision-making," Dr. Elion explained. "This timely collaboration among medical professional organizations, the developers of computer-based medical systems, and the IHE organization will provide important advances in information management and will directly impact patient care."
As both a practicing cardiologist and technologist, Dr. Elion brings a unique background to the IHE committees. He has been involved in cardiac image processing for more than 20 years and has hands-on hospital experience with electronic medical records, integration, DICOM, HL7, and other technologies related to modern hospital information systems (HIS). He still practices cardiology in an acute care setting, and is a Fellow of the ACC.
Dr. Elion has a long history of leadership roles in the cardiac image processing industry. As the ACC's representative on the DICOM committee, Dr. Elion implemented and made public the first reference CD-R containing X-ray images in DICOM format. The software to support this innovation was shared with the other vendors -- creating a catalyst for the huge market that now exists in filmless cath lab operation -- and eventually resulted in the founding of Heartlab.