MSDN Industry Center - Health

Patient safety is a critical issue for healthcare organizations worldwide. Microsoft has been working with the National Health Service (NHS) in England to improve patient safety by creating a common look and feel for NHS systems through the NHS Common User Interface (CUI) Programme. This partnership initiative is in conjunction with the UK government agency called NHS Connecting for Health. Microsoft is now publishing the Design Guidance produced through this collaboration and providing the Healthcare community with access to the associated controls.

Version 2.1.1 of the Health Connection Engine (HCE) has been released to CodePlex. This release fixes a number of bugs in the deployment and configuration areas and addresses security and performance issues identified by FxCop and the community.

To encourage the creation of health information networks that serve the broadest range of healthcare needs, Microsoft has developed a guideline for e-health software solutions called the Connected Health Framework Architecture and Design Blueprint. The Connected Health Framework is an architectural approach to developing health information networks with common business and technical design definitions for public and private organizations. We are pleased to announce that the final Connected Health Framework - Architecture and Design Blueprint guides are available for your review and comment.

The efficient transfer of health information between and amongst healthcare providers is one of the greatest challenges the health sector faces. Healthcare provider information systems vary considerably in terms of modernity and sophistication, from paper-based systems to highly sophisticated web-based integrated information management tools. Information needs vary from practice to practice. The Health Connection Engine (HCE) facilitates the interoperability between these multiple systems by abstracting the interfaces used to connect them and by providing a rich and extensible adapter framework.