Talk:MnM SWOT
Good start, but there are some other things I might point out on the "weakness" side (since I am in a grouchy mood).
As someone who "gets" modeling, I still find working with the existing tools, even after taking Woody's course (maybe I just need to repeat it) challenging. We need tools which let us start with a base model (specifically the Clinical Statement Pattern) and constrain. This will greatly ease the burden and backlog "in the trenches". MDHT will be a great addition, particularly when it is fully interfaced with the SMD.
We will always need to train people beyond the intro courses on both the modeling process, and the tools. While the cause was cited as "lack of bandwidth" this may be because there are not enough people with the expertise in the HL7 modeling, terminology, and publishing tools & processes. You were right on money about the lack of support for novice and intermediate modelers.
You didn't mention Detailed Clinical Models, which is something I would hope that MnM would embrace, encourage, support, and insist upon (and not just because it is my pet project, which is another reason to support it).
This is a chance to create a library of comprehensive, and orchestrated, static models which can be quickly and easily (and safely) used to represent a given domains content requirements. It is supposed to be a central collection of stuff that can be snapped together and the unneeded parts pruned off, knowing that the terminology and the surrounding RIM-based models all fit together.
DCMs are a way to create a top-down framework all the way to fairly low level abstractions, as well as a terminology centric, bottom-up modeling which should work hand-and-glove with the top-down approach (so long as we remember we are working on static models of meaning, and nothing else!) when they meet.
Finally, I don't recall seeing anything about the lack of a QA process on information models and HMDs going to ballot. We know that that all ballots may not attract the needed, detailed attention to catch errors. It can take hours to read just one or two with the attention sufficient to notice errors. (One of the motivations for DCMs is to address the issue of content modeling quality using the Clinical Statement Pattern which kept showing up in various ballots which all modeled the same thing differently.) MnM needs some process to make sure that the RMIMs, DMIMs, HMDs which go into a ballot are technically correct. It cannot just be the facilitator and the ballot. We need a real QA/QC that can go over models before they show up on the ballot site and get the bugs fixed before they hit the ballot.
I don't want to sound like a complainer, there are a lot of great things done in MnM, and, when I have time, one of the most intellectually satisfying things I do in my life. --KevinCoonanMD 02:03, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
