[FOSS_health] Re: interoperability

[David Forslund]

There apparently was no driving force for these systems to interoperate 
and it made more money for Oacis to configure each one on its own.  It 
was also pressure, I suspect, from local practitioners who always know 
best ;-).    I believe that money could have been saved if they had 
thought about interoperability earlier in the process.

Dave
Tom Jones wrote:
>
> The Oacis system has a very large implementation in Adelaide. At one 
> time, (and this may still be true), there were substantial Oacis 
> implementations in Toronto (at Sunnybrook) and in Chicago (at the 
> University of Chicago). Imagine the consternation when the users at 
> all three institutions discovered that the Oacis methodology at that 
> time did not include configuring according to a standard information 
> model with standard terminology. Collaborative research across these 
> distinguished teaching institutions just went out the window.
>
>  
>
> Tom
>
>  
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* foss_health-bounces at oshca.org 
> [mailto:foss_health-bounces at oshca.org] *On Behalf Of *Tim C
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 03, 2007 5:10 PM
> *To:* foss_health at oshca.org
> *Subject:* Re: [FOSS_health] Re: interoperability
>
>  
>
> On 04/06/07, *David Forslund* <forslund at mail.com 
> <mailto: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
>     >>
>     >
>