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The husky project (a synonym for heath usablity key) is intended to be the key to unlock the door to IHE XDS.b Affinity Domains, which are the foundation of many infrastructures to exchange healthcare information (like the Swiss EPR and ELGA in Austria).
The intention is to enable developer and vendors to quickly implement the required IHE Profiles to connect to the exchange infrastructures freeing them to implement all the details of the interfaces and messages.
Although it is strongly recommended to study the underlying profiles and specifications, the intention of husky project is to provide a low barrier access which requires only basic knowlegde of actors and transactions of the underlying IHE profiles.
The husky project provides a software library written in the Java programming language. It provides a thin layer on top of the more generic IPF framework, which contributes the core implementation of the IHE transactions.
To use the husky library with your application to options are at hand:
You may integrate the husky library as module in your application and use the Java API to connect to the health exchange infrastructure.
You may use the husky library to implement an adapter to convert your favorite API technology to the IHE profiles required by the health exchange infrastructure.
Each of the above variants have their advantages but also pitfalls and you may choose based on your own requirements and preferred technologies. Both of the above integration methods are currently in use by contributers. You’ll find links to their experience reports below.
If we draw your interest, please check out the husky getting started guide.
The development of the project is driven by the contributers, who actively use the husky projects in real life projects.
The project is actively maintained by eHealth Suisse, the swiss competence and coordination centre of the Swiss confederation and the cantons and maintains the national profiles for healthcare interoperability.
The project is hosted under the umbrella of IHE Suisse is the country organization IHE in Switzerland and is actively promoting the use of the profiles of IHE International in the Swiss healthcare market.