20120913 Q2 Tooling WGM Notes

Tooling Meeting Template

Meeting Information

HL7 Tooling Meeting Agenda/Minutes Location: Baltimore Guest Room 503	Date: 2012-09-13 Time: 11:00 am EDT
Facilitator: Jane Curry	Note taker(s): Lynn Laakso
Attendee	Name, Affiliation
x	Jane Curry, Co-Chair
x	William Goossen, Patient Care
x	Walter Grant, VA
x	Russ Hamm, Vocab WG
x	Wendy Huang, Vocab
x	Austin Kreisler, TSC Chair
x	Lynn Laakso, HL7 HQ Tooling Support
x	Carol Macumber, Apelon
x	Frank Oemig, CGIT WG
x	Brian Pech, KP
x	John Quinn, CTO
X	John Ritter, EHR
x	Rob Snelick, CGIT
x	Michael van der Zel, Patient Care liaison, UMCG
Quorum Requirements Met (co-chair plus 3 counting staff): yes

Agenda

Agenda Topics
Tooling Strategy Discussion, Update from liaisons to other WG, Tactical Plan

Supporting Documents

Minutes

Minutes/Conclusions Reached:

• Call to order 11:05 AM EDT
• Tooling Strategy
  • Revised version of Grahame's "Towards a Tooling Strategy" reviewed.
  • John recounts the Board's feeling that HL7 should provide tooling across the whole spectrum. The Advisory Council feels we should differentiate on our tools. Some feel we should create commercial-quality tools. It seems reasonable that the more sophisticated our standards, the better tools we need to provide for the user community.
  • Governance, management, and methodology aspects discussed, with the Tooling WG as the management body with decision making held by John and the Board.
  • Tooling strategy has been as a project for a year, so is not new just this summer. The Board has been expressing conflicting efforts with offering HL7 IP at no cost, which may reduce membership whose revenues typically fund the budget. Simultaneously they recognize the need for better tooling which is going to require a higher budget. Much of the tooling budget is fixed in "keeping the lights on" for publishing V3, etc. Volunteer-driven tools are built on the developer's platform of choice so that all tools run on the same platform (e.g. Eclipse was not the platform used for Trifolia).
  • Jane will send the document to the Tooling list and we'll start working on action plans and performance metrics. Document needs some revision to have the kind of look and feel and flow of other strategic plans like the new Education strategic plan. Intention is to manage this by product line, then by project, and using the concept of tooling coordinators. Austin notes that a role is needed in a product line but that initially a single person may hold multiple roles and eventually move to that level of support.
  • William asks if you have tools then you need to demonstrate enough income on the tools to be self-sustaining for a tooling coordinator.
  • Frankly the most frequently used tools in HL7 are Word and Excel, John notes. Jane reiterates that understanding what we have and what we use can help create metrics on what we need to build and how much it will cost. We have to provide a solid business plan in order to pursue a big grant.
  • John Ritter notes a cost-in-kind reward as with universities. John Quinn notes that HIT as an area of study is becoming more prominent and there is renewed interest. William notes that the teachers at the schools have to be involved in the topic as well as with the students to supervise such development, whether with reward as course credit or some certification, or developer/author credit. Jane suggests we consider this topic further on the list serv.
• Liaison update
  • William will overview the project for EHR FP designer. He narrates a slide show. Phase 1 is import/export/validate of FM and second phase is import/export/validate of profiles. The expect to create publication artifacts by the January WGM.
  • Michael notes for Patient Care, he solicited requirements from the list serv and received no response. William says Patient Care is reliant on V3 tooling.
  • RIMBAA group met with Tooling on Monday and are working on coming up with the categorization list.
  • Russ reports for Vocab in Andy's absence. Couple project scope statements in Vocab still coming up for approval, adoption of NLM tool for Vocab harmonization US "CRS- Content request system" and enhancement of MIF to IHTSDO WB. CRS manages SNOMED extension requests and is used by Jim Case at the NLM. Vocab maintainers can interact via the web with the requesters. Plan is to integrate into IHTSDO WB. Risk assessment wiki page has been set up. Next phase of WB will be mapping MIF representation of HL7 vocab to the WB. Need initial activity to maintain HL7 vocab using the WB on a trial basis. Should be at least a representative subset to use with a trial of the function of the system and identify training requirements. MIF Export would make the project more complex. Question raised is the official representation of HL7 vocabulary - use WB repository or other tool with MIF export? Jane suggests that we need to include a mapping to 2.2 in addition to working with the IHTSDO enhancements and then later worry about export. Russ suggests working with existing tool in parallel with the WB for the next cycle or two to not disturb harmonization process before working on export. What is the official persistence of its content? Jane says ask Woody. Russ adds they expect to get the scope statements through Vocab and Tooling by end of October.
  • Rob Snelick reports for CGIT was anticipating Pete Rontey and the VA to contribute but with Pete's passing Rob has been talking with Walt. The current MWB needs update and they're discussing if it should be out on Open Source and address its current embedded 3rd party software. NIST and VA working on an MOU to enable the plans, which currently don't include HL7 interaction. It's about "how do you work with HL7". Tool to show how to write implementation plans becoming important. They'd like to see their implementation guide tool be used consistently as a validator. Jane suggests they need to work with v2 Publishing and V2 Publishing editors. V2.x implementation guides quality guidelines would be welcome. Austin asks about the MDHT tool use in that effort. The same look-and-feel for guides in multiple spaces is the goal. They will need a project scope statement to bring this forward.
  • Frank states with V2 publishing process, to improve information by extracting from word documents. It's becoming more complicated to have all necessary steps and have consistency. His database contains more information than just HL7 but some IHE or DICOM so had not been delivered to HQ. He's looking at migration to MySQL or to some other web based editor perhaps. In 2001 he was told we wouldn't be maintaining V2.x so you don't know how many versions we'll continue into the future. Jane notes the Tooling WG will find his report useful once completed. This may fall into product line coordination activity. Tool improvement integrates with process improvement. Improved tooling can improve processes through standardization. Many issues reported to the Tooling group are process or methodology issues. Training improvements on tools and better documentation and user training are also targets. Austin has ensured that the new Education Director is aware that the strategic plan is lacking tooling improvements.
• Tactical plan - what projects are on the list for 2013.
  • MAX and EHR-S FM are at top of list as they are ongoing.
  • Violent disagreements need requirements analysis and scope statements to get into the priority list.
  • Tooling strategy document also begs some funding request to enhance and operationalize the strategy.
• Jane thanks the group for continuing to work with Tooling on improving the processes evidenced by the RFP process initiated this summer.
• Communication strategy hopes to find energy out there in other universities or communities to contribute to creating cool tools and learning new things.

Adjourned at 12:27 PM EDT

Meeting Outcomes

Actions ane will send the Tooling Strategy document to the Tooling list and we'll start working on action plans and performance metrics. .

Next Meeting/Preliminary Agenda Items .

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