In his recent blog post, Eric Browne highlights what may be a problem in the design of the Australian PCEHR, due to the well-known CDA feature allowing dual forms of content – text and structured, supposedly equivalent – to be stored in the one document. If Eric’s examples are representative of real data in the future PCEHR system, there is definitely a problem. In any case, there is a general problem, to do with common misuse of the CDA architecture, which itself should be changed to remove such possibilities. Read the rest of this entry »
The CDA ‘dual-content’ conundrum
28/01/2012
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Health Informatics | Tagged: CDA, e-health, EHRs, HL7, standards | 
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Posted by wolandscat
CIMI group goes with openEHR archetypes & UML profile
14/12/2011The Clinical Information Modelling Initiative (CIMI) group led by Dr Stan Huff (Intermountain Health, Utah) met here in London 29 Nov – 1 Dec to make a final decision on formalism, from the two remaining – openEHR archetypes and various forms of UML (previous posts on CIMI: DCMs & RM, on formalisms). Instead of simply choosing one, the group made a more strategic choice of designating openEHR ADL/AOM 1.5 as the core formalism, with a corresponding profile of UML being developed to enable the more numerous UML-based developers (e.g. VA, NHS etc) to use archetypes within their UML toolchains.
Here is the public announcement resulting from this meeting.
1 Comment | Computing, Health Informatics, openehr | Tagged: archetype, DCM, e-health, Health Informatics, openEHR | Permalink
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CIMI: purpose-built or jury-rigged?
14/11/2011In recent weeks, the Clinical Information Modelling Initiative (CIMI), led by Stan Huff, has followed its stated process and is nearing a voting process in which a shared health domain modelling formalism is chosen. Proponents of each of the candidate formalisms have been asked to post arguments supporting their work.
A supporting statement for openEHR archetypes as the optimal formalism is posted here, on the CIMI wiki. We have not included any beautiful tool-based views, nor even the ‘latest and best clinical models’, following Stan’s request for the ‘raw’ technical view of the syntax. Accordingly, the only thing with even any colour in it is these screenshots of an ADL archetype in a raw text editor, with syntax highlighting on.
Leave a Comment » | Health Informatics, openehr | Tagged: 13606, archetype, e-health, Health Informatics, ISO 21090, models, standards | Permalink
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Why e-health really is hard
10/08/2011Every so often, someone asks: why can’t the health sector get its act together with ICT? Tell me why health is ‘different’?
Dilbert - advances in healthcare
Every so often a new and interesting answer to this question pops up… Read the rest of this entry »
4 Comments | Health Informatics, Philosophy | Tagged: e-health, EHRs, Health Informatics | Permalink
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Information models, DCMs and Archetypes
07/07/2011I will be attending a ‘Fresh Look’ meeting in Washington next week. The idea is to make some progress on the topic of ‘detailed clinical models’ (DCMs). Some of the goals include setting up a repository of DCMs, establishing governance, and defining a roadmap for tooling. Underlying all this is a huge list of formalisms and models, including OWL, UML, ADL, HL7 MIF, XSD, LRA, RMIMs, CDA templates, greenCDA and so on.
Read the rest of this entry »
7 Comments | Computing, Health Informatics, openehr | Tagged: archetype, e-health, HL7, models, openEHR, standards | Permalink
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DCMs – can they look good AND be computable?
08/06/2011Let’s talk about mindmaps and archetypes. Mindmaps seem to be fuzzy and friendly – we need them because they are incredibly efficient at transmitting information to humans. Archetypes seem über-mathematical, but we need them to do proper model-based computing.
1 Comment | Computing, Health Informatics, openehr | Tagged: archetype, DCM, e-health, Health Informatics, models, openEHR | Permalink
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Detailed Clinical Models (DCMs) – some basic facts
03/06/2011The New Zealand e-health programme architecture task-force has published its Working Interoperability Reference Architecture blueprint document. With respect to the document and the comments posted (I tried to post myself, but the comment disappeared), it seems worth making a couple of points on DCMs, of whatever flavour. If a DCM is to be expressed in a way useful to building and managing health IT infrastructure, there are two possibilities. Read the rest of this entry »
5 Comments | Health Informatics, openehr | Tagged: archetype, DCM, e-health, Health Informatics, HL7, openEHR, standards | Permalink
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One information model to rule them all?
05/05/2011One of the age-old debates in health informatics: can there be ‘one information model’ for shared clinical information? Some dream of a model to rule them all, uniting standards efforts, while others dismiss the idea as impossible or unrealistic. Obviously inside deployed health/hospital information (and all other – lab, GP, nursing, billing, PAS etc) products, there are private, differing information models. These do not concern us. Read the rest of this entry »
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How could HL7 refresh?
01/05/2011Continuing on from the basis established in the previous post, here I will say what I think HL7 could do to help here. My suggestions are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Health Informatics | Tagged: e-health, HL7, openEHR, standards | Permalink
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What needs fixing in e-health?
01/05/2011or, e-health seen through the prism of an ancient pantheon of gods…
Grahame Grieve’s recent blog entry on the HL7 Fresh Look Task Force seems a good excuse for me to have another big picture look at e-health. The fact that HL7 is doing this indicates two things at least: that it thinks something is wrong in the HL7 organisation, and that it thinks something is not going right in e-health in general. That’s good to see. HL7 has been the single most influential standards body in e-health for at least 15 years. It has spent massive effort in the last decade on an effort called HL7v3, or ‘version 3′. This effort has not been a resounding success, indeed the evidence indicates the opposite. I have historically been one of the strongest critics of the technical architecture of this effort, so my statements here won’t come as any surprise. To give credit where it is due however, I have come to see that HL7 was trying to the right kind of thing, just that they lacked the appropriate expertise to do it. Solving the challenges in the area of e-health is no mean feat, and maybe some of them are unsolvable, so take that statement as a commiseration rather than a criticism. Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Computing, Health Informatics | Tagged: e-health, Health Informatics, HL7, standards | Permalink
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