Hi Akhil, totally agree, too.
In Germany, we have an existing standard, which is followed by all Lab-data-providers: It is the LDT-Standard (Labor Daten Tr�ger). Basically, LDT is a defined file- and data-format for transmission of Lab data results. German usres can find the specification here. http://www.schenk-ansorge.de/daten/eininfo/ldt1001.01.pdf or here: http://www.kbv.de/it/1895.htm Though, LDT was initially made for communication between Lab and general practitioners (in Germany), not for intra-hospital use. Anyway, most/if not all providers of lab-management-systems (in Germany, I can not speak for other countries) support LDT. Within the next years everybody involved in medical data transmission will shift to CDA, which is an official ANSI-Standard. CDA means clinical document architecture. It is completely based on XML, even if it is derived from HL7. Here is a very insightful overview on XML in Clinical Research and Healthcare Industries, linking on standards, bodies and lealth care initiatives: http://xml.coverpages.org/healthcare.html German Information about CDA: http://www.sciphox.de/atwork/cda/cda.htm For standardisation issues, especially universal identifiers for laboratory and other clinical observations see: http://www.regenstrief.org/loinc/ I am very convinced, that Care2x will only survive and succeed, if existing standards in health care are included and supported. The implemenatuon of standards will be the turn-key for acceptance of Care2x through hospital(-managers). Some developers complain about problems with intellectual property and/or copyright and standards. Yes it is (often, but not always) true: Developers first have to BUY the written, official standard specification (for example, you have to PAY some 100 Euro, to buy the written HL7-standard in Germany). After that you can use the standard freely for implementation in your own (free, OS or commercial) projects. No fees, no license costs. You are simply not allowed to make copies of the written standard itself and distribute these copies. One first step in Care2x could be the generation of CDA conforming XML-documents for hospital discharge and admission from Care2x. The second step could be to import information from (external) CDA-documents into Care2x. Regards Alex ----- Original Message ----- From: "Akhil Gupta" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005 9:38 PM Subject: [Care2002-developers] Laboratory Module - Needs a total rewrite Hi, I have the following issues with the laboratory module due to which I am planning for a total rewrite of the laboratory module 1. Any test - say Haematogram has a number of test parameters attached to it - the system at present does not have provisions to define custom test parameters per test and their normal ranges. 2. All the test names and parameters are bound in a array hash due to which modifications and additions is a tedious job - shouldn't it be in tables? 3. The lab test list need some standardization in terms of structure and parameters. My Question Has anybody thought on the lines of migrating the lab module on database? Akhil ------------------------------------------------------- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595&alloc_id=14396&op=click _______________________________________________ Care2002-developers mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/care2002-developers
