Austria

The Austrian Interoperability Forum is running since 2013. It was established as an open platform of the e-health standardisation organisations represented in the “Memorandum of Understanding“: Austrian Standards International ON-K 238, IHE Austria, GS1 Austria, DICOM Austria, HL7 Austria. The Memorandum of Understanding was originally signed in 2009 and renewed in 2020 with the inclusion of DICOM Austria.

The purpose of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is a clear commitment to cooperation and the minimisation of divergent and conflicting standards, as well as the reduction of new standards developed in parallel. The user benefits from the simpler use of uniform standards and thus receives long-term investment security.

The aim of the Austrian Interoperability Forum is to support e-health projects in Austria and to help promote the use of communication standards in these projects. Participation in the Interoperability Forum is honorary and voluntary.

Oriëntation and working methods

The following points were agreed on the direction and working methods of the Interoperability Forum:

• The task of the Interoperability Forum is to identify and work on cross-standard eHealth standardisation projects – either directly in the Interoperability Forum or in the MoU organisations;
• Participants in the Interoperability Forum are primarily all representatives of the MoU organisations, but other experts are also welcome;
• The Interoperability Forum provides a mutual information platform for the MoU organisations;
• The IOP Forum is not a new organisation, association or standardisation organisation;
• It does not develop its own standards;
• Participation is voluntary and on an honorary basis (no reimbursement of travel expenses is provided)
• Meetings: three times a year (as required)