I did not included it because, I must confess, I had a hard time trying to create a "user model" of it... and I gave up.
Either it is because I am not a native english speaker and I cannot fully understand some of the concepts beneath it, or it is because my own neural network was not able to "catch" it.
In any case I think that it is authors fault. The bait was not god enough. It should be easier to understand. Or it is already easier enough and it is my own fault.
It is like when we find a new surgical technical in a just arrived magazine and we simply fail to understand how to do it. We realize that it could be interesting, but we simply fail to understand how to master it (We know that sometimes by own experience because as we go and stay at that author team we suddenly talk to them, see how they do it... and suddenly we realize how simple and clever that was...)
well - all I can say to that is that there are discussion groups, and it is easy to raise questions and get them answered.
The openEHR reference model for example only has 3 generic Entry types - Observation, Evaluation, and Instruction; and about a dozen other major types. Encounter is not one of them.
I see that it has the potential to be more flexible and accurate. But we do not know yet how to do it.
How are your users doing with it? How do people use it in India, or in Libya, or in Brasil, or in Germany?
There are implementations going ahead in Australia, UK, US, Germany, and under consideration in Netherlands. But a large part of the work is designing the archetypes and templates for it.
Instead, you have to adopt a different strategy. One such strategy is 'two-level modelling', which I described in some detail.
Detail. Yes. Understandable? Well... No.
Be patient, I am still from the "baby boomer" generation. Maybe my neurons are not functioning properly anymore...
Perhaps if you could you provide metaphors, better pictures, real life examples.
Or better yet, a real piece of code to include in Care2x and see how people accept it. ;-)
Say you have this marvelous new antibiotic. And it is supposed to make wonders for people. Say that at Care2x we are still using penicillin. But we use it in a large network of hospitals. Would you care for a clinical trial?
In the end lets see who kills more bugs. But I must warn you that if we find your antibiotic better we may drop ours and immediately start using yours.
So, you see, this is pragmatism at work, there is no "my baby" syndrome. It is plain earth-to-earth "if yours is better and if it comes with no strings attached (read if it it is FLOSS) we will use it".
That has been the most constant thing in the Care2x project and perhaps one of its greatest strengths: if someone comes along with a *working* better approach, we drop ours and just adapt to the new code. We may even find some mutants along the way, but the only way to know if they are "adaptative" or not is... to try them. And I assure you, we do try a lot.
I have no problem with your approach - it just means that the point at which you adopt something like openEHR is further down the track than other implementors who are working with it now - i.e. when it has fully working implementations available. But my main point was not to criticise your work at all, it was just to further explain the reality of trying to make everyone share a particular data model.
- thomas beale
