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The OpenHIE Interoperability Layer Community (OHIE-IOL) aims to enable easier interoperability between Health Information Systems

. Key activities of this initial phase are to perform a critical review of the architecture and technologies used in the development of the RHEA implementation of these HIE components, as well as a comprehensive review of alternatives, to ensure due diligence.

See http://openhim.org for more details of the OpenHIM application.

The documentation is available at Interoperability Layer Community Documentation

There is also a Github repository, which are intended as open collaborative work spaces for all interested parties to add to this work

by providing a forum for discussion and knowledge sharing and by designing and developing an interoperability layer that connects the components within the OHIE.

We envision a world in which the timely exchange of health information improves health outcomes and saves lives.

Our mission is to build and sustain an open community to discuss the challenges of interoperability between health information systems, as well as to design an architecture and develop a reference software application to enable easier interoperability between disparate health systems and components. We promote the use of appropriate standards to support best practices for health data exchange.

Our values

We hold the needs of our target community of users as our primary concern
We are an open and collaborative community, valuing the inputs and respecting the contributions of every member
We strive for elegantly simple solutions to complex problems
We use the “adopt, adapt, develop” approach to inform our decision-making process for standards and technology
We aim for ease of use to reduce barriers to adoption, especially in low-resource settings
We are implementation-driven in our designs and requirements, valuing practical solutions to real problems and real needs

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What is an Interoperability Layer?

An interoperability layer is a system that enables easier interoperability between disparate information systems by connecting all of the infrastructure services and client applications together. In the OpenHIE context, these systems are Health Information Systems (HISs) such as a client registry, provider registry, facility registry, shared health record and terminology service. An interoperability layer receives transactions from client systems, coordinates interaction between components of the HIE and provides common core functions to simplify the interoperability between systems.

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title	About Our Community

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Documentation
- Use cases and Requirements
- Architecture & Design discussions
- Supported Workflows & Standards
- Transaction and Message specifications
- Interoperabiltiy Layer Functional Specifications Document
- Reference Technologies (Reference software)

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title	Interoperability Layer Tools (reference technology)

The interoperability layer developed by this community is the OpenHIM (Open Health Information Mediator),an open-source middleware system based on an ESB architecture and currently implemented in Rwanda as part of the RHIE. Plans for current development activities can be seen on the roadmap .

More details about this tool are available at