The10th Annual European interoperability testing event, known as the IHE Connectathon, will be held in Bordeaux, France from April 12th to 16th, 2010 at the Cité Mondiale.

More than 300 information technology engineers from 90 companies are expected for this year's event, an intensive, five-day 'connectivity marathon' for testing the interoperability of applications used in health information systems.
In parallel with these testing activities, Connectathon 2010 will offer two full-day conference programs, one focused on the progress towards interoperability in European health IT programs and one focused on developments in France.

At the IHE Connectathon all companies implementing IHE Technical Framework specifications in their products have a unique opportunity to test their applications with systems and products from other vendors in a real-time interoperability environment.

According to vendors who have participated in previous Connectathons, "the cost of identifying and solving a bug during a Connectathon is about 10 times less than the cost of a bug identified on site."

The results of the Connectathon will be published on the IHE-Europe website and application vendors may refer to the IHE Integration Statements to show compliance of their product with IHE Integration Profiles. This is a clear benefit to vendors when responding to Requests for Proposals from users.

More information: www.ihe-europe.net