Technical design and first clinical application of the generic HIPIN HIS/RIS-PACS interface

HIS/RIS-PACS interfaces are inevitably very complex due to the large differences between HIS/RIS and PACS. Furthermore, because of the high degree of mutual variation among HIS/RIS system and among PACS systems, the interface must be different for each combination of HIS/RIS with PACS. To solve this problem, a generic HIS/RIS-PACS interface has been designed and realized within the scope of the EurIPACS/HIPIN topic. The internal architecture of the HIPIN interface has been designed into a common part, which schedules and processes the messages, and specific adapters for each of the connected systems, which match the communication profile and the message syntax of the system to which it belongs. The applicability of this HIPIN interface both in technical and in clinical aspect is being demonstrated by testing and by using the HIPIN interface at two hospitals, namely the Free University Hospital in Brussels and the Philipps University Hospital in Marburg.