On Thu, 24 Mar 2005, Greg Kreis wrote:
Good points Joseph!
Joseph Dal Molin wrote:
I think the discussion about the MDC needs to be put into a broader context.
Joseph:
You are right in that the issue of the MDC must exist in a broader context that already exists but we must get the MUMPS community actively discussing MUMPS' role in thsi context. Think first of ISO TC-215 on Health INformatics, then think next of the ANSI Health Informatics Standards Board in the US and the other worldwide national standards bodies. The MUMPS language as Ed DeMoel commented yesterday exists in both of these contexts. I disagree with him that the MDC is irrelevant; for the end beneficiary it is a key building block in an ediface that brings benefits to healthcare professional disciplines by being the technologic vehicle by which the information and knowledge of recent science and technology is brought to the point of application by an idividual practitoner to an individual patient. MUMPS does not exist in a vaccum and it did not originate in Boston in a vacuum; nor did it progress to yield VistA in avacuum. It is a key component of "Enterprise View, Life Cycle Principles"; thus the importance of the MDC needs to be seen in terms of its long term and current context role. If you can understand the activities of ONCHIT here in the US and similar activities in UK, the CEN TC-251 and the activities in India, then cocnetrate on the comments of Greg Kries about the different context of thinking about MUMPS compared to 20 yrs ago. Nevertheless, the MUMPS community was 20 yrs ago thinking of the kind of environment in which we now exist and its associated challenges; we just need to rise to that vision and articulate exactly the strategic plan you are demanding.
I can tell you that healthcare has passed in the 1990s through the "Decade of Denial" into the current "Decade of Refusal" to do just that and, like the bunch of bums setting at the sewer outfall "Waiting For Godot" to save them.. It will suffer the same fate until it addresses that it will be saved when it gets off its butt and does the needed work in the smae way the MUMPS proceeded in the 1960s when Octo got moving. Th MUMPS community has that heritage and it can energize the implementors in the way that Ed DeMOel noted must be done, as well as all the rest of the community whose contribution is everybit as essential. The key players are in Boston. JOhn Glaser was a key officer onthe MTA and has written the ONLY book on Stratgeic Planning for IT in Healthcare. You need to, however needed, get him to a key forum to speak on this subject during this "Week in Boston". And get some of the press folks there to propagate the message. Death to "MUMPS is Dead"!. Let me know how to help.
From my less technical vantage point I sense that the "root driver" for a revived MDC is the very strong need for countering the argument that MUMPS is a dead language....that is one of the major "objections" that potential VistA adopters raise. My 2cents worth of advice is that what we need is a strategy for adressing this kind of objection....and that may include the existence of an MDC-like organization..and it may not. What is needed is a clear set of strategic objectives before there is too much spinning of tires because the perspective may be too narrow.
Joseph
On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 16:02:54 -0500, "Ed de Moel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
I intended to be present at the discussions in Boston, however, a more pressing matter involves that I'll be in Odessa (Ukraine) that week, so I had to cancel travel plans to Boston.
To all who are there: all the best and enjoy the festif\vities around the eve of $Horolog=60,000.
Here's what this message is about:
Every now and then I get contacted with questions about the current status of the MDC. And every now and then there is a suggestion to "revive" the committee.
The current status of the committee is: - it still exists - the most recent meeting was in September 1999 (during this meeting only organizational issues were discussed) - the most recent meeting where there was a discussion of any techinical issues was in September 1998 - depending on the criteria to determine membership, current membership is any number of institutions (not individuals) between 6 and 23.
My personal opinion about the MDC is: - The committee "as we know it" has served its purpose and currently has no purpose anymore. - If a roster of work could be defined for a new organization that would build upon the work of the MDC, it is better to shut down the MDC and start a new organization with its own mission and its own bylaws. - Converting the MDC into a new organization without violating any of the bylaws of the MDC is close to impossible.
Further background:
There are many models on which a Standards Developing Organization (SDO) can be based. We are familiar with the models of ANSI and ISO, and we are aware of the models used by IEEE, w3c and DICOM. However, there is one aspect that is common to all standards and models of operation: there is a group of implementors who are committed (either voluntarily as in ANSI and ISO, or by contract as in DICOM and some subgroups of IEEE) to implement any changes to the standard within a certain amount of time after the publication of a new standard.
The MDC published its last official standard in 1995. This standard has been implemented fully in only one implementation (DSM), which is currently no longer supported. All implementations that are currently on the market did not implement one or more details from this standard. Since the commercial success of all of these implementations is sufficient for the needs of their users and implementors, there are are not even plans to implement the remaining details.
As fas as the other MUMPS related standards is concerned (OMI, GKS Binding, X-Window binding, MWAPI): OMI is still supported by some vendors, but I am not aware that any of the other standards is still actively supported by any vendor.
After the 1995 MDC standard became official, well over 100 modifications to that standard were approved by the MDC, and almost none of these have been implemented by any implementor. Clearly, there is no group of implementors who are committed to implementing any of the MDC's standards, and therefore it is my opinion that the MDC as a committee has outlived its usefulness and ought to be formally dissolved.
Note that, whether or not an MDC exists, the ISO standards will continue to exist, until ISO votes them out of existence. In the fall of 2005, ISO will review the status of the MDC documents, and, as far as I know, the recommendations from the various member countries are to re-affirm the documents (Language Standard, OMI and MWAPI) with the intent to stabilize them, in other words, it looks like ISO will retain the standards for the forseeable future. Also, as long as these documents are ISO standards, the copyrights for the documents will remain at ISO.
Of course, if the MDC decides to dissolve itself, appropriate notice should be given to ISO, and a decision should be made as to who would become (or remain) responsible for the maintance the new documents. The current MDC liaison and project editor is Kate Schell.
Aside note: the current document editor for the draft MDC Standards is Ed de Moel.
Respectfully submitted, Ed de Moel Secretary of the MDC.
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