August 24-25, 2006, Cologne, Germany
| International HL7 Interoperability Conference IHIC 2006
August 24-25, 2006, Cologne, Germany |
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To the IHIC 2006 conference program committee
Email: ruth.kidd@cfh.nhs.uk
Name: Ruth Kidd
Affiliation: NHS CFH, UK
Address:
2nd Floor Princes Exchange
Princes Square
Leeds
West Yorkshire
LS1 4HY
Tel: +44 113 280 6599
email: ruth.kidd@cfh.nhs.uk
Ruth Kidd is a newcomer to the world of HL7 and healthcare informatics, having taken up a position with the NHS Connecting for Health project in the UK in January 2006. She is currently working on amendments to Choose and Book – a live NHS application which uses HL7 V3 messages – as well as helping to develop messages and ensure HL7 conformance across several draft-status domains awaiting national rollout.
Prior to joining CFH, Ruth attained a 1st class honours degree in English and American Studies before going on to be awarded a distinction level MSc in Internet Computing, both from the University of Hull in the United Kingdom.
Unveiling HL7 – The challenges faced by newcomers to an emerging healthcare standard
other
25-30 minutes
How can the HL7 international community work together more closely to share domain knowledge, training ideas and lessons learned?
Using individual case studies from the Connecting for Health project in the UK, this presentation hopes to put forward some ideas provoke discussion about international cooperation and collaboration which is surely vital to the future of any emerging global standard.
Unveiling HL7 – The challenges faced by newcomers to an emerging healthcare standard
Ruth Ann Kidd BA Hons, MSc, National Health Service Connecting for Health (NHS CFH), United Kingdom
Background: The NHS CFH project is one of the largest of its kind in the world, and it is implementing HL7 V3 messages across its domains. The success of any project depends upon the skill of the resources assigned to work on it, and over the years the NHS has recruited (either directly or on a consultancy basis) some highly experienced HL7 message practitioners.
Recently, however, CFH has recruited some fresh talent, including recent graduates with non-healthcare IT experience. The general industry perception of the HL7 knowledge-base seems to be that it can at first appear esoteric and difficult to infiltrate. This posed an interesting question for the NHS messaging team: how would complete newcomers adapt to the standard, particularly in an environment where messages are being designed, reviewed and then implemented in a live, real-world system?
Methods: This presentation will provide an overview and insight into the experiences of complete newcomers to HL7. It will include a review of currently available educational literature and its suitability to the uninitiated, as well as a case-study of actual personal experiences in learning HL7 development methodology and practices. The case studies will express the opinions of both new and veteran HL7 practitioners with regards to the availability of educational facilities, gaining domain and standards knowledge and potential avenues for future development in these areas. The presentation will also explore opportunities for working together as an international standards community in order to share knowledge, challenges and lessons learned.
Results: This presentation is intended to convey some of the challenges and conflicts arising when attempting to break into the world of HL7 standards development and use. It is hoped that it will demonstrate the strengths of current HL7 community knowledge-sharing processes, as well as highlighting any areas in which improvements could be made in terms of access to education, documentation and peer-experience by newcomers working on actual implementation projects.