seems to be dominated by vendors and special consultants, with particular agendas. The latter has had a poor
track record at understanding information infrastructure.
The goal of the OMG's HealthCare Domain Task Force has been to provide the tools
and components which would allow for this goal to be reached. The response of many
vendors has been a "yawn", since a powerful component framework applied to healthcare
could serious impact many vendor's business model.
We have been working recently in linking various hospitals together as part of a
biodefense initiative. We are using completely open standards (OMG, HL7) and, mostly, open source (OpenEMed)
We believe it is possible to provide interoperability between hospitals in a robust and secure
manner, but it will take a change in most of their ways of doing business and, as a result,
will cost a great deal to get it deployed. I would be interested in others who would
like to see this happen.
The PICNIC effort in Europe (www.euspirit.org) is following this same path trying to
link together the systems from a number of countries. I wonder if the HIMSS/NCVHS
efforts are taking notice.
Dave
At 03:42 PM 10/19/2002 -0400, Joseph Dal Molin wrote:
> Am I correct, or just overly cynical? Or is it possible to build
> infostructure which
My immediate reaction is that the HIMSS initiative sounds a lot like
initiatives we have seen in the past in other domains....e.g. the
Andover Group, and the broad architectural conceptual frameworks of both
IBM and Digital...whose acronyms escape me now.
Both initiatives feel like "let's try and boil the ocean"
strategies...perhaps I'm getting too old too.
Joseph
On Thu, 2002-10-17 at 16:51, Tim Churches wrote:
> david derauf wrote:
> >
> > HIMSS launches task force for national health information network
> >
> > October 17, 2002
> >
> > The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society yesterday
> > announced a task force charged with developing plans for a national health
> > information infrastructure (NHII). The task force is intended to help health
> > care leaders develop a "comprehensive system capable of providing
> > trustworthy information to all health care decision makers," HIMSS
> > announced.
> >
> > The National Health Information Infrastructure Task Force will first examine
> > the current state of health care information technology and identify areas
> > for development. The group is also charged with developing a prototype NHII
> > and incorporating feedback from HIMSS members and other health care leaders.
> > Task force members come from organizations including Cerner, the Medical
> > Records Institute and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (HIMSS release,
> > 10/16).
> >
> > The National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, an advisory body to
> > HHS, is also examining ways to develop a NHII. In December 2001, NCVHS
> > released a report that outlined ways that government, industry, advocacy
> > groups and consumer organizations could work together to build a health
> > information system (NCVHS report, December 2001).
>
> Note the essential difference between the NCVHS plan and the proposed
> HIMSS plan.
> The aim of the former is to build a national infostructure which
> improves capacity
> to improve health status and obtain better health outcomes, whereas the
> latter will be a plan
> for making the delivery of healthcare services more efficient - which is
> not quite the same
> thing and more a B2B network.
>
> Am I correct, or just overly cynical? Or is it possible to build
> infostructure which
> serves both ends? As an outsider, I suppose I am fishing for a better
> understanding
> of the motivations of HIMSS.
>
> Tim C
>
--
Cheers,
Joseph
Joseph Dal Molin
e-cology corporation
www.e-cology.ca
