In the project of OR.NET, 57 partners deal with developing, testing and standardizing concepts for dynamic networking of computer-controlled medical devices in an OR and the interaction of these devices with medical software. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with approx. 15 million €.

While consumer electronics components like MP3 players, smartphones, cameras, monitors and printers of different manufacturers smoothly interact, medical devices in an OR are still monolithic systems of individual manufacturers with limited modularity and interchangeability.
Essential reasons for it are the regulations for the test and certification of medical products as well as the issue of the risk management of networked healthcare products.
On the basis of service-oriented architectures, OR.NET ´s aim is to develop an approach for linking medical equipment from different manufacturers to an IT  infrastructure outside an OR.

Within OR.NET, the OFFIS R&D Department "Health" primarily deals with connecting imaging systems (X-ray and ultrasound, CT and MRI, image archives, diagnostic and OR planning systems), which are linked to each other on a DICOM standard, to the service-oriented OR.NET middleware in an OR. In addition, OFFIS works with the German Institute for Standardization (DIN), DKE and IHE on submitting the project´s results to standardization.