mlhim-owners team mailing list archive

[Tim Cook <timothywayne.cook@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ian,

Roger has already stated the hard facts of the issue.  Maybe I can add a
bit to it. 

It has been known for quite some time that a set of rich datatypes and
structures are required for semantic interoperability between complex
systems, such as healthcare applications.  For example this is why ISO
21090, HL7v3, ISO 13606 and openEHR exist. 

So you can ask; Why MLHIM?  Well, the first two of that group use what
is known as profiling to create an implementation. That simply means
that you use what you want from the specs.  However, this creates a
situation where different implementations use different sets from the
standard.  Creating structures that are not inter-operable. 

The last 2, try to only specify EHR situations forgetting that there are
many more "other" healthcare applications. They also do not use popular
technology so implementation is very slow. 

I have personally been working on this issue since 1997.  In 2001 I
joined up with openEHR.  However, for various reasons.  They do not
(IMHO) subscribe to how open source/open content projects grow.  So in
2009 MLHIM was born.  With the ideals of the best of all worlds.  Sure
it isn't perfect.  But the core developers have a lot of health
informatics experience.  Also, we are always open to new ideas. 

Taking the projects you referenced.  Roger has already stated that, yes
XForms are a possible implementation platform.  The OpenRosa project
seems to recognize the need for a set of standard datatypes.  But there
isn't any documentation.  Only code representing some APIs.  I'm not
sure how W3C is going to formalize this Java code.  Anyway, CommCare and
OpenXData "just" miss the point when it comes to interoperability across
all healthcare sectors.  

I would be happy to discuss the details of semantic inter-operability
with these groups if they are open to our participation. 

BTW:  Yes, I am very familiar with the OpenMRS EAV datamodel. 

Cheers,
Tim

  

On Wed, 2011-02-23 at 10:40 -0430, Ian Lawrence wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I wonder if you have considered using xforms? There are already a
> couple [1] [2] of OS health projects (probably many more)  which use
> this. In mobile data collection we are basically coalescing around a
> standard called OpenRosa [3] which will be formalized by the w3c
> sometime this year
> Just an idea
> 
> Regards
> 
> [1] http://www.openxdata.org/
> [2] http://www.dimagi.com/commcare/
> [3] http://openrosa.org/
> 

-- 
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Timothy Cook, MSc
Project Lead - Multi-Level Healthcare Information Modeling
http://www.mlhim.org 

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