David Forslund wrote: > > I'm a little puzzled why you found the OO design stuff VERY > strange. > It is a paradigm that makes computing much cleaner and clearer > to me rather than a hodgepodge of procedures and data. I understand Past tense. Sorry if that wasn't clear. It took me several rounds of attempts to get my head out of 3NF. > that Zope/Python/C, etc. is very powerful, although I find the > documentation > for Zope to be rather hard to follow. I couldn't find the > on-line tutorial. There is now considerable documentation, compared to six months ago. Check out: http://www.zope.org/Documentation The book, Introducing Zope_ is really quite good. > > When that WW-EMR is unfurled, it will be passing > > archetyped data, because that will already be the proven > > inter-application communication methodology. > > You may be right, but I'm convinced the principles behind what > is being done in the OMG HDTF will have to be done if we > are to have interoperability. ... > XML isn't the solution, it is just a technology that people may I agree. On both counts. > OpenEMed can do those things too, but they have little to do > with interoperability > by themselves, just in the convenience of being able to run the > system in > many different environments. The point is that they have the capability. The domain data definitions still do not exist, but when they are created, some applications will not be able to effectively implement them without extensive rewrites. > I think you have made the case for a virtual patient record, > since > the specialist will be generating information on the patient, > too, > and unless they can be pulled together, the knowledge of > the patient's condition and treatment procedure will suffer. I agree. But in reality it will not happen in one fell swoop. To miss this point is to miss the social dynamics and the nature of the people involved. Notice throughout that I 'do' support the concept of the virtual patient record. But even the concept of the ASP model makes most physicians very uncomfortable, today. > What you describe is very labor intensive and prone to error. > Also > totally non-transparent to the patient who might like to review > his > medical record. What about duplicate information? Much less so than the way things REALLY are today. We are working in two separate realms. Yours is sometime in the future and mine is in the real world today. My point is that the work you are doing today is something that I must be aware of and make plans for. But it is not a 'reality' requirement. > > Future: ... > Something like that. The ability to resolve destinations and > validate > transmitting authority, locate information, etc., is available > today. > The standard archetypes are not. Exactly. As I said; it's a socio-political barrier, not a technological one. > SSL is not equal to security. How do you authenticate and how I am not confused by the requirements of authentication/authorization. My point was the transport layer security where the data is outside the physical control of the transmitting and receiving entities. > But how do I know I can trust you (or anyone else)? In today's world we use the very simple userid/password/PIN combination and the occasional biometric device. In the future we will see widespread use of X.509 (and probably others) certificates. > What about HIPAA? HIPAA is much more about documentation and chain of trust/responsibility than about technology. Note that userid/password and 128 bit SSL is GES. > We need the RAD functionality, even between systems within a > hospital. I'll have to lookup RAD in this context. I am not familiar with it. > > I'm not happy with waiting. I'm trying to do something now. ...and I'm very glad you are. AS I stated at the outset. I believe what you are doing is VERY important. You have worked through many technological problems and presented a very workable solution. Being the "predictors of the future" that we are (and I say that rather seriously) what is YOUR estimated time frame for a virtual patient record system outside of academic institutions? -- Tim Cook, President - FreePM,Inc. http://www.FreePM.com Office: (731) 884-4126 ONLINE DEMO: http://www.freepm.org:8080/FreePM
