At 7:02 PM +0800 1/1/06, Richard Hosking wrote:
The latest candidate openEHR specifications are at
http://svn.openehr.org/specification/BRANCHES/Release-1.0-candidate/publishing/index.html
<snip>
Should these form the basis of data structures in Gnumed?
I don't know the answer but maybe some thoughts can help.
Much of the impact of any data structure will be on the coders (though
it will also impact users in areas of data interchange, and the amount
of work getting interfaces to the backends rewritten to take advantage
e.g. of clinical decision support).
Recently Karsten replied to related questions, indicating a preference
for monitors and/or devil's advocates to indicate why a standards
body/group designs something a certain way, and why that rationale (if
there is one) deserves adoption/adherence. It implied some further
understanding we may need to reach about how/why to "adopt" anything
like the above:
Potential Pros
- a wider set of use cases has likely been factored into the design
- they could assist interoperability (regardless of whether
"intrinsically better")
- efforts under this framework could be better pooled
Potential Cons
- the more expansive, the harder to imagine "whole" implementations
- have the specs been assembled with a view to being manageable to
implement?
- hard to code without reasonably fully "digesting, internalizing" the
process that created the specifications?
- could the specs, if written to accommodate the widest possible
audiences and use cases, limit their usability (on account of
compromises) for any one audience, or use case?
How much of the specifications define how data ought to be
*stored/structured*, or is that only an issue to the extent that it
could simplify *exchange* according to their specs?
If, on the whole, the pros would outweigh the cons, some thought could
be given to a migration strategy, maybe to happen after v 0.4? Perhaps
identifying how the openehr schema could be roadmapped against what
will already have been done would be useful? And would this only
happen if, among the gnumedders, there are individuals who would do
*both* this legwork *and* code? There is a high likelihood of
non-follow-through if the result of the exercise is simply someone who
learns/digests the openehr "way" to just "advise" everyone it ought to
be followed.