The VHA Health Information Architecture (VHIM) uses UML as its "boxology" (you know, the different kinds of "ology" that use "boxes" to represent things!) It's fairly expressive and has a wide range of tools now available to transform the models into other useful artifacts (e.g. variations on the XML suite of things). I believe there are even some efforts to model business rules (using some business modeling tools) and not just the objects. The current VHIM model began half a dozen years ago by doing just the kind of archeology that Nancy refers to. We were using VistA, CHCS and RPMS as our "dig" and created a model used in the GCPR and FHIE effort. That model has now gone through several iterations with the VHIM 3.x versions based on the HL7 data types.
The VHIM is even used now to generate code to use in the VA's Health Data Repository as well as some of the code for services that interact with the HDR "front end", the Clinical Data Service. There have been two very different approaches to using the VHIM. One is used in the FHIE (Federal Health Information Architecture) and the BHIE (Bi-directional Health Information Architecture ... to move data in both directions between VA and DOD). That approach keeps the data structures very light-weight and can support virtually any version of the model. The information structure for requesting and passing data is computed at the time of the request and response. It proved quite useful when the timetable for delivering FHIE was so short that the code had to be done before the model was finished! The second approach is to use the VHIM to generate SQL DDL for a given model version with every relationship hard-wired into the tables. (In my opinion, an extremely brittle approach ... It's how VistA was built in the early stages. Some pioneering work by Bob Andrews and by Doug Martin showed a much more agile approach! Unfortunately, in VA this work hasn't seemed to catch hold.) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Aylesworth, Marc A Ctr AFRL/IFSE Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 2:31 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'; 'hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net' Subject: Re: [Hardhats-members] Alternate databases? I think that what Greg refers to is that the code is not important in the same sense that words are not important until some intelligence combines them in a way to make a point. Greg is saying that the code is not as important as how what the code can do now that it runs on a system. Another analogy would be the archeology analogy where the buildings of and in themselves are not important, what is important is the telltale signs the occupants left in the building when living in them. Thanks Marc Aylesworth RRC C3I Group AFRL/IFSE Systems and Information Interoperability Branch 525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Tel:315.330.2422 Fax:315.330.7009 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nancy Anthracite Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 4:06 PM To: hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Hardhats-members] Alternate databases? It is in the code, but by looking at what the code does, you can see what providers and hospital administrators and support staff have needed over the years. It is a gold mine of information. Extracting that would be a trip, like medical archeology that is largely directly relevant for finding what a newly developed system would need. It is like an slightly encrypted list of the best requirements document you could possibly imagine. It may be that it has been partly extracted and improved, from what I understand from Cameron's enlightening lecture at the GMU course, and contained in the documents here: ftp.va.gov/vista/VistAdocs/VHIM I hope he will chime in and explain what these documents are with a much more lucid explanation than I can give. On Thursday 15 June 2006 15:44, Jim Self wrote: hmmm?! So then, how exactly is the knowledge incorporated in the system but not in the code? If it is not in the code, where is it? Gregory has made this claim before, but it makes no sense to me. Bill Walton wrote: >Gregory Woodhouse wrote: >> My point of view is that the real value of VistA is not >> in the code, but the knowledge incorporated in the >> system. > >Very nicely stated. --------------------------------------- Jim Self Systems Architect, Lead Developer VMTH Computer Services, UC Davis (http://www.vmth.ucdavis.edu/us/jaself) --------------------------------------- M2Web Demonstration with VistA (http://vista.vmth.ucdavis.edu/) (http://openforum.worldvista.org/~forum/m.cgi) --------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members -- Nancy Anthracite _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
