Since 1998 the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) initiative is attempting to stimulate integration of healthcare information resources to improve clinical care. They have been developing frameworks and profiles for testing of interoperability and standards compliance.
The approach employed in the IHE (http://www.ihe.net/) initiative is not to define new integration standards, but rather to support
the use of existing standards�HL7, DICOM, IETF, and others; as appropriate in their respective domains in an integrated manner, defining configuration choices when necessary.