OpenICE – Medical device interoperability platform

OpenICE is an implementation of the ICE standard, which defines an architecture for building a safe patient-centric Integrated Clinical Environment.  This platform allows connecting together distributed systems such as:

• medical devices found in an OR or ICU;
• blackbox recording applications (i.e. data logging);
• applications for clinical decision support (CDS);
• and external interfaces to other healthcare IT (HIT) systems like EMR flowsheets.

OpenICE automates peer-to-peer node discovery, data publishing and subscribing between nodes, as well as proprietary medical device protocol translation. Users and developers of the OpenICE platform get the data they need, in a common sensible format, seamlessly delivered to the destinations they want.

OpenICE has been called an open clinical research platform, an abstraction layer for medical devices, a medical Internet of things (MIoT) platform, a cyber-physical system (CPS) test tool, an app hosting environment, amongst other names. The current version of OpenICE enables users to convert heterogeneous medical device data from supported devices into a common structure and protocol, and to exchange that data with demonstration clinical applications on a different machine (or machines). OpenICE includes several simple but useful sample applications as well as example code to help users to write their own.

The OpenICE application is the entry and exit point for medical device data into and out of the network. OpenICE has two operating modes: Supervisor and Device-Adapter. The Device-Adapter software acts as a bridge that will to connect both real and simulated medical devices into the OpenICE network. The Device-Adapter software translates the proprietary device communication protocols into the standard OpenICE data structures and communication protocol. The Supervisor runs clinical applications and subscribes to all medical devices in the same Domain and Patient Context.