Friday, September 16, 2005
HL7 Certification Grows
More than 1000 candidates will be certified in HL7 Version 2 by the end of 2005. The HL7 Version 2 Certification tests address Chapter 2 (Control) of the HL7 Version 2 Standard and have been available since 2001.
The HL7 Education Committee, meeting this week in San Diego, resolved to move forward with a new project to develop formal curricula and certification tests for HL7 Version 3. The first Version 3 certification tests are likely to cover understanding of the HL7 Version 3 RIM (Reference Information Model).
The HL7 Education Committee, meeting this week in San Diego, resolved to move forward with a new project to develop formal curricula and certification tests for HL7 Version 3. The first Version 3 certification tests are likely to cover understanding of the HL7 Version 3 RIM (Reference Information Model).
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Welcome Jeremy Thorp to BSI IST/35 Chair
Jeremy Thorp, Head of Business Architecture at NHS Connecting for Health, is to become the new Chair of BSI IST/35, the UK's national health informatics standards committee, it was announced at the IST/35 meeting on 7 September. He replaces Ray Rogers, who has held the post since 1991. Pat Village, who has served as secretary since 1991, is also moving on. BSI IST/35 is important because it is the one and only body that represents the UK on international standards bodies such as CEN TC251 (Europe) and ISO 215 (International). Jeremy Thorp is one of the few people in NHS Connecting for Health who has direct experience of healthcare standards development. Jeremy is a key-note speaker at HL7 uk 2005
e-GIF Technical Standards Catalogue 6.2
The latest version of the Technical Standards Catalogue (6.2) is now available on GovTalk. The main changes from 6.1 are mainly related to web services, smart cards and other fast evolving technologies. In Healthcare the 3 "adopted" standards (the highest level) are HL7 V3, the NHS Data Dictionary and SNOMED CT. Download from: e-Government Unit e-GIF TSC 6.2.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
HL7 uk 2005 Conference Sponsors
BT, CSW Group, InterSystems, iSOFT, Microsoft and Oracle are sponsoring the HL7 uk 2005 conference to be held at the Hotel Russell on 2-3 November 2005. See HL7 uk 2005 Web-site
Monday, September 12, 2005
Brailer's Wake-Up Call to Standards Developers
Today at the HL7 Annual Plenary Meeting in San Diego, David Brailer, President Bush's National Health Information Technology Coordinator issued a wake-up call to the healthcare standards community. He stated that the standards development infrastructure was "fatally broken", with some 30 different and competing standards development organizations. Yet he claimed that interoperability is his no. 1 priority and depends on standards.
He demanded "use-case driven" standards. If the standards community cannot agree on what is needed to achieve a business task, then he is putting in place a process that will choose "singular" solutions for each use case.
He observed that people take risks when they adopt standards! Ultimately standards are about money. They change the power structure by giving more power to ultimate customers (and their intermediaries) and away from system suppliers.
He demanded "use-case driven" standards. If the standards community cannot agree on what is needed to achieve a business task, then he is putting in place a process that will choose "singular" solutions for each use case.
He observed that people take risks when they adopt standards! Ultimately standards are about money. They change the power structure by giving more power to ultimate customers (and their intermediaries) and away from system suppliers.
Friday, September 09, 2005
New SNOMED Standards Development Organization
Kevin Donnelly, Vice President and General Manager of SNOMED International, today told the SNOMED User Group about the plan to create a new SNOMED Standards Development Organization (SDO), which has been approved by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) Board of Directors. The SDO is to be responsible for all components of SNOMED CT needed for International use. National Centres will develop extensions for local use. The plan will be implemented over the next 6-12 months. The CAP will continue to provide services for the new SDO for a transition period of up to 5 years. The aim is to make SNOMED CT freely available throughout the world and to encourage international uptake, collaboration, alignment, contributorship and the ability to meet local terminology needs.
Few Brits at SNOMED International User Group
Why are so few Brits here at the 7th Annual SNOMED User Group Meeting in Chicago? I can only find two other paying delegates on the delegate list, in addition to David Markwell and Ed Cheetham who are speaking, yet Iceland has 6 people here.
SNOMED CT is one of the mission-critical standards on which the whole NHS Connecting for Health programme is based. It tackles the most complex issue in health informatics – structured clinical terminology – and is inevitably complex itself. As Kent Spackman pointed out yesterday, even implementing a problem list is "non-trivial". Do people recognise that they do not know what they do not know!
SNOMED CT is one of the mission-critical standards on which the whole NHS Connecting for Health programme is based. It tackles the most complex issue in health informatics – structured clinical terminology – and is inevitably complex itself. As Kent Spackman pointed out yesterday, even implementing a problem list is "non-trivial". Do people recognise that they do not know what they do not know!
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Data Quality and Coding Rules
Kent Spackman – Chair of the SNOMED International Editorial Board – expounded two new rules in his Tutorial for the SNOMED User Group in Chicago today:
1. The First Rule of Data Quality is that the quality of data collected is directly proportional to the care with which options are presented to the user.
2. The First Rule of Coding is that yesterdays data should be usable today.
He explored these rules by considering the challenges and obstacles involved in using SNOMED CT for creating Problem Lists, Medication Lists and Medication Allergy decision support. And he showed that the key to making this work properly is the skillful use of SNOMED CT Subsets and the appropriate use of Post-coordinated concepts.
Subsets are lists of SNOMED concepts for a specific purpose.
Post-coordination is the ability to link concepts together to create more complex ones, using qualifying relationships such as body site, laterality or severity.
1. The First Rule of Data Quality is that the quality of data collected is directly proportional to the care with which options are presented to the user.
2. The First Rule of Coding is that yesterdays data should be usable today.
He explored these rules by considering the challenges and obstacles involved in using SNOMED CT for creating Problem Lists, Medication Lists and Medication Allergy decision support. And he showed that the key to making this work properly is the skillful use of SNOMED CT Subsets and the appropriate use of Post-coordinated concepts.
Subsets are lists of SNOMED concepts for a specific purpose.
Post-coordination is the ability to link concepts together to create more complex ones, using qualifying relationships such as body site, laterality or severity.
