The first question to ask ourselves is: Does openEHR have to be an ISO standard? If yes, this entails all the procedural handicaps that we have been avoiding so far. The current model allows us to tightly manage an evolving architecture. Its acceptance is neither mandated nor enforced. If it doesn't work for David More, W. Goossens, and others, they don't have to adopt openEHR (but then they'll have to come up with a credible alternative). On the other hand, if it offers competitive advantages to multiple vendors that are developing solutions requiring scalability and semantic interoperability, it is up to them to define the limits (or limitations) of its applicability.
Since openEHR is neither Microsoft nor the EU, it can only proceed through consensus community building. Critical voices inside the community contribute to the evolution of openEHR. Sweeping criticisms from without don't seem to contribute much. Every company needs to find the business model that works for it. In the case of Ocean Informatics it seems that demand for its tools and components is rapidly increasing and there exist a growing number of partners willing to pay for developer licenses and also to commit sufficient in-house resources to testing and deploying openEHR-based solutions. Does it pay to have more articles and studies published? Probably it does. Is it a good use of scarce resources to engage in a "my PowerPoint against your PowerPoint" competition? I guess not. As general San Martin said "Con dias y ollas venceremos." Ogi Pishev Ocean Informatics Quoting Thomas Beale <Thomas.Beale at OceanInformatics.biz>: > > > > > > > Tim Churches wrote: > > Thomas Beale wrote: > > > > formance and volume in actual deployment this calendar year. > > > > OK, that's fair enough, and I wasn't intending any criticism of the pace > - these things do indeed take time. I was merely pointing out (or > rather agreeing with David More's point) that a push for finalised ISO > and other standards for openEHR implementations does seem a bit > premature in the absence of such documented real-world experience of > successful use. > > Or am I just being overly pernickety? > > > to be honest I don't know when is the right point for an ISO standard. > All I can say is that it is the wrong point if no software had been > done, no archetypes had been built, no clinicians had been involved and > no data have been built with the archetypes etc...but all this has been > achieved and demonstrated. Obviously more has to be achieved, but on > the other hand this is a lot better than a lot of standards that have > no implementations at all. And if it isn't useful, it won't get used - > something better will come along and replace it. > > > > > > (actually, I would like to see similar papers about similar / competing > systems ...) > > > > Yes indeed. But two (or more) wrongs (or absences of evidence) don't > make a right. My view is that the practice of health informatics needs, > desperately, to become evidence-based, otherwise we will continue to see > hundreds of millions or billions of dollars being poured into the > deployment of health information systems based on what is in the sales > brochure, or based on tender responses, which tend to be just more > elaborate versions of the sales brochures. > > > well, I can't disagree. We are working as fast as possible on such > outcomes. > > > > No government would ever dream of subsidising the cost of a new > pharmaceutical unless there was good evidence that the drug offered > real-world benefits over existing drugs of the same type. (Actually they > would, but I am sure you get my point). > > > it is not so clear cut in my mind. On the road to "a new > pharmaceutical" are all kinds of intermediate steps, often occurring in > university labs, teaching hospitals and elsewhere. To have the level of > teaching and basic research framework to allow someone to get close to > making a new drug necessarily implies some level of social funding > (unless we want a user-pays-for-every-little-thing kind of society); so > while the drug itself should not be funded unless it is safe etc, the > other 90% of the iceberg must have already been funded somehow to even > have a society with organisations and people who could make such a > drug... > > > > - thomas beale > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ openEHR-clinical mailing list openEHR-clinical at openehr.org http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/openehr-clinical
