Re: [Hardhats-members] So what is an EHR architecture, anyway?

[Gregory Woodhouse]

On Jul 29, 2006, at 12:24 PM, Chris Richardson wrote: OK, I'll bite.   Thanks. EHR architecture,  A record architecture which helps to maintain the medical life history of an individual.  That sounds good.  I might choose something less restrictive here, as the focus seems to be almost entirely longitudinal, a natural emphasis in an office environment, but I think there is more to an EHR architecture than that. Such an architecture should be dynamic and flexible Flexible in what way? enough to adapt to the changeing scal and density of medical data and also provide easy interchange with other data repositories.  Okay, this good. How would you define scale and density in this context? Adaptation is the key.  This is a principle with which I completely agree, but it's not clear that it is specifically an architectural principle. I would probably prefer to call it a programmatic statement, or perhaps a design principle. On the other hand, I can see that it could be argued that this is precisely the kind of thing that belongs in an architecture.  Standardization is the soul of that interchange, but is not held slavishly to only those standards. Okay, this is your most radical statement yet, and I don't think it's quite clear what you mean. You can't have it both ways: either you meet the requirements of a standard or you don't. If what you mean is that standards shouldn't be the driver in determining the basic architecture of an EHR, then I agree. But if you mean that standards are useful, but we should feel free to deviate from them when they prove inconvenient, then I most assuredly do not agree.   It needs to be extensible, I agree. And sadly, this is one of the areas real systems most often fall short. expansive, Expansive? In what sense? secure (as in private), I don't know if this is your intent, but I wouldn't limit security in this sense. If anything, I would emphasize that security includes privacy. and contain consistency checks to insure that the record is only changed by authorized individuals. That's part of security, too.      How is that, Greg?  Not bad. I think my concept of architecture is a little more concrete and a little less programmatic, but the whole point of the question was to solicit other people's ideas as to what architecture means. I appreciate your response. Gregory Woodhouse [EMAIL PROTECTED] "You can't win if you don't finish the race." --Richard Petty

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