[FOSS_health] Re: interoperability

[Tim C]

On 04/06/07, David Forslund <forslund at mail.com> wrote:
>
> Precisely.   I have a simple analogy to explain this.  Just because a
> group of people all might use MS Access does not mean that they have any
> real ability to exchange data between these systems.  They are all
> running the same software, but have probably created their own data
> dictionaries (tables, etc).


That's not an ideal example, because MS-Access is an application development
environment, not a specific application per se. generally, all instances and
implementations of a specific applications share the same core tables and
schema, although many applications allow a lot of site-specific
customisation of the schema, data capture screens, reports etc around the
edges. That is a problem, as is the semantic encoding: the use of different
code sets at each site, even if each site uses the same software. If there
is some overarching or shared governance between sites, then a shared or
common "data dictionary" (that is, meta-metadata, codesets etc) can be
formulated, but often the only thing in common between different sites is
the fact that they are using software from the same vendor (or open-source
provider) - and that, as we have been discussing, does *not* mean that
interoperability will ensue.

Of course, there are only very weak "business drivers" for a hospital in
Tegucigalpa and a hospital in Sydney to be able to share or interoperate
with respect to clinical information (research information, maybe), but
there would seem to be strong business drivers for a hospital in San
Salvador or Managua to be able to interoperate at the semantic and syntactic
levels with a hospital in Tegucigalpa?

And business drivers for interoperability between US military health
information systems? Um, what is that old saying about military
intelligence?

Tim Churches

  The DoD have all used the same software,
> but weren't required to use a common dictionary or to maintain a common
> dictionary.  This may have changed more recently, but it certainly was
> the case around the year 2000.   I think the VA has done a better job in
> this regard.
>
> Dave
> Joseph Dal Molin wrote:
> > In both open and proprietary systems users of the same application
> > across multiple organizations usually have the power to add new
> > terminology etc. without some centralized "terminology"
> > standardization process.
> >
> > Joseph
> >
> > Nandalal Gunaratne wrote:
> >> David,
> >>
> >> "Just running the same system at multiple locations is
> >> no guarantee of semantic interoperability."
> >>
> >> Please explain why this is so, in brief.
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >>
> >> Nanda
> >>
> >
>
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