Category Archives: Philosophy
Why using HIT standards fails to achieve interoperability
I started working in the Health IT area in 1994, on a major European Commission funded project. I attended years of standards meetings at HL7, CEN and occasionally OMG and ISO from 1999 to about 2012. And I’ve observed the … Continue reading
The folly of the obsession with source code
My favourite topic these days is the phenomenon of fundamentalist thinking. You don’t need to go to Iraq to find it, it’s all around us…. Recently I chanced upon a post entitled ‘Coding is not the new literacy’ by Chris … Continue reading
Charlie Hebdo – in defence of a civil society
Normally this blog is reserved for my work. This evening I make an exception. I am outraged and disgusted at what I see has happened in Paris this afternoon. A massacre of 12 at and around the offices of Charlie … Continue reading
The real reason most software fails
To my mind there is a problem in academia to do with where disciplines like ‘computer science’ (CS) and applications of computing sit. Pure computer science is the study of computational theory and applications. It develops things like data structures, … Continue reading
Ontologies in health: ready for prime time? IAO versus openEHR
A lot of ontology work has been going on for some years that comes loosely under the BFO and OBO activities, which stand to improve how computing in health is done. BFO is the Basic Formal Ontology, and OBO is … Continue reading
Why e-health really is hard
Every so often, someone asks: why can’t the health sector get its act together with ICT? Tell me why health is ‘different’? Every so often a new and interesting answer to this question pops up…
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