For the benefit of those who could not make it to the WEDI SNIP HIPAA IMPLEMENTATION SUMMIT held in Phoenix from Nov 18 - 21, 2002.
There was a session on Nov 20th between 9.45 AM - 11.45 AM on the topic "Validation or Certification", moderated by Patrice Thaler of Allina Health System and Mike Ubl of Blue Cross of Minnesota and the main participants being three vendors of testing tools represented by their big chiefs... Namely Sunny Singh from EDIFECS, ED Hafner from Foresight Corp, Kepa Zubeldia from Claredi, presenting a case study of three vendors. First of my sincere thanks to Patrice, Mike and whoever helped in this case study, besides the vendors. Being the author of the vendor-neutral statement in the Testing and Certification White Paper (Hey John, why is my name missing in the acknowledgements section? ;-)), and being the first (one of the?) to suggest the formation of Vendor (of testing tools AND TRANSLATORS) Consortium in one of the teleconference calls in May/June of 2002, I am really glad that this case study was done. It is the first step in that direction of forming the vendor consortium to help the CEs be able to pick and choose any one of them vendors, for they ALL have to offer the same basic VALIDATION (not certification) capability by coming up with the same ERROR messages and similar warning messages for the same test files. This case study proved just that point and am truly delighted and am happy to share it with one and all. One more interesting thing and I would like Kepa Z to clarify for all of us... On page 3(of the handout we were given there), on a "Claredi - Passed Claim", there is a heavy disclaimer in BOLD, which reads "This is not a certification or verification of HIPAA compliance Summary of test report for confidential use by Claredi customer only". I know and agree that it is NOT CERTIFICATION. I can also understand why the disclaimer is there. But Kepa should explain to us why he touts Certification with an evangelical pitch and then this disclaimer... saying it is NOT CERTIFICATION! Another important point, as suggested by Larry Watkins, as a member of the X12N committee (correct me Larry if I am not saying this right), that the discrepancies in the standards are not that many and there is a very good process to address them. I can't agree more. The bottom line is, it is Testing, Verification and Validation and NOT CERTIFICATION. End of discussion. I have been saying this all along and one more time won't hurt ;-). That said, I really do believe all the vendors, have a lot to offer in the validation part of transaction testing. I have no bias or preference towards one vendor. The CEs (or their testing people) should make the choice. Don't let anyone fool you that it is soooooooo big and only I (my org) can lead you(r org) to salvation ;-). Accreditation, creating entities to certify and the process of certification is a long one and can be done, but vendor consortium will eliminate the need for certification all together, IMHO. This message is not intended to be against any individual or a flame and rake up any unnecessary things but to share the joy of possible formation of vendor consortium and also request the translator vendors to join in the vendor consortium. This will really help in reducing the chaos and eliminate the obfuscation and confusion that is there and being created... We don't have time and anybody who can chip in to make things simple to whatever extent should be commended... like Patrice and Mike and all those who participated in the case study. In Patrice's words, paraphrased, "It is easy and you can do it, and I have done it". Thanks for reading up to this point. Best Regards, --Rama. --- The WEDI SNIP listserv to which you are subscribed is not moderated. The discussions on this listserv therefore represent the views of the individual participants, and do not necessarily represent the views of the WEDI Board of Directors nor WEDI SNIP. If you wish to receive an official opinion, post your question to the WEDI SNIP Issues Database at http://snip.wedi.org/tracking/. These listservs should not be used for commercial marketing purposes or discussion of specific vendor products and services. They also are not intended to be used as a forum for personal disagreements or unprofessional communication at any time. You are currently subscribed to wedi-testing as: [email protected] To unsubscribe from this list, go to the Subscribe/Unsubscribe form at http://subscribe.wedi.org or send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you need to unsubscribe but your current email address is not the same as the address subscribed to the list, please use the Subscribe/Unsubscribe form at http://subscribe.wedi.org
