Marcallee, If not here, where? I am beginning to be a bit concerned that good healthy debate on critical issues for HIPAA and the industy is being unnecessarily curtailed in the name of "too commercial." Thus, I disagree with your opinion that this discussion is inappropriate for this WEDi SNIP discussion list. Many vendors can make many valuable contributions to the discussion....after all, when all is said and done and the sun sets, it's the vendors that will ultimately provide the solutions to the industry to enable it to achieve the objectives of HIPAA. If they can't contribute openly as they see fit, then the industry loses.
If the industry can't argue, debate and examine these critical issues in an open forum where all can participate, the industry suffers. I can think of no other forum which is more suitable for this kind of discourse. If the messages get too commercial, then participants on this list and other SNIP lists are sufficiently capable of policing themselves. Rachel Foerster -----Original Message----- From: Marcallee Jackson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 6:03 PM To: WEDI SNIP Testing Subworkgroup List Subject: RE: VALIDATION or Certification The issue is not whether or not there is value in the message. There are lots of vendors who can teach us a lot through a very detailed explanation of their product or service. The issue is whether or not that is a permitted and appropriate use of this list and it is not. -----Original Message----- From: Rachel Foerster [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 2:01 PM To: WEDI SNIP Testing Subworkgroup List Subject: RE: VALIDATION or Certification Marcallee, Just a quick personal perspective on this - and folks know that I do try to inhibit blatant commercial messages on any of the WEDi SNIP lists..... I've listened and participated in this ongoing discussion of testing and certification for several weeks. One conclusion that I've drawn is that there is no industry-accepted definition of testing and most certainly not one for "certification." As a result I suggested to Larry Watkins at the Baltimore HIPAA Summit that developing an industry-accepted definition for "certification" could be an important task for this subworkgroup to take on. Having said that, I think that Kepa's very detailed and clear discussion of Claredi's approach to both testing and certification is an excellent start for the industry to begin grappling with the distinctions between the two activities. Perhaps the Testing & Certification White Paper is trying to do this, but I think that this continued debate indicates it perhaps fall short of the mark. Therefore, by no means did I take Kepa's message to be even close to a sales pitch, but rather a very detailed and sincere effort to set forth some concepts and activities that are embodied in Claredi's services offering in such a manner that folks can truly begin to separate testing from certification, drawn their own conclusions between the two, and then determine for their own enterprise an appropriate course of action. One area that I believe the industry has truly not yet grasped is the time, resources and magnitude of the effort needed to establish an EDI trading partner interface in a production mode. This effort will be further exacerbated in health care for HIPAA due to the very nature of the industry: an industry composed primarily of very small enterprises; an extremely fragmented software vendor sector with little or no experience in developing and deploying solutions for using the X12 standards integrated with application systems; and damn little time to get everyone up and running. Detailed messages such as Kepa's serve to better help the industry truly get a grasp on the challenges and issues confronting everyone, and rather than trying to discourage such contributions, I think they should be encouraged. If messages such as Kepa's encourage other vendors to join the fray, then ultimately the industry will benefit through a more detailed understanding of the issues and through competition resulting in better products and services to those that have to make this work. There - I'm off my soapbox for today! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! Rachel Foerster Principal Rachel Foerster & Associates, Ltd. Professionals in EDI & Electronic Commerce 39432 North Avenue Beach Park, IL 60099 Voice: 847-872-8070 Fax: 847-872-6860 eMail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.rfa-edi.com --- The WEDI SNIP listserv to which you are subscribed is not moderated. The discussions on this listserv therefore represent the views of the individual participants, and do not necessarily represent the views of the WEDI Board of Directors nor WEDI SNIP. If you wish to receive an official opinion, post your question to the WEDI SNIP Issues Database at http://snip.wedi.org/tracking/. These listservs should not be used for commercial marketing purposes or discussion of specific vendor products and services. They also are not intended to be used as a forum for personal disagreements or unprofessional communication at any time. You are currently subscribed to wedi-testing as: [email protected] To unsubscribe from this list, go to the Subscribe/Unsubscribe form at http://subscribe.wedi.org or send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you need to unsubscribe but your current email address is not the same as the address subscribed to the list, please use the Subscribe/Unsubscribe form at http://subscribe.wedi.org
