We’ve been approached by Standards Norway which is the national ISO affiliate, about participating in the revision of ISO 13606.
My first thought was, would this be worth our (limited) time? What’s the role and value of 13606 right now and in the future?
Opinions anyone?
Opinions - a bucketload!!
However it would be good to get a ‘corporate’ view from @ukpenguin @Jordi_Piera_Jimenez and @johnmeredith about how things look from a wider European perspective. How is 13606 viewed e.g within EHDS.
In the UK it has been as a possible stick to wave at suppliers since it is a ‘standard’ e.g for bulk data extract but now that openEHR is much more clearly aligned with the standards community, that view is lessening.
Personally I find it difficult to understand what role 13606 has going forward. In the UK, apart from a tiny number of niche suppliers it is not used at all, or even discussed. Even then, these suppliers have implemented their own proprietary take.
@yampeku and @damoca will have views from a Spanish perspective, which AFAIK is the only place where any kind of implementation has taken place.
I suspect John, Rachel and Jordi might not have access to ‘The Lounge’.
Do we have any idea what is being proposed for the 13606 revision? AFAIK no-one has adopted the last revision!!
They have access, everyone with trust level 3 or 4 do.
ISO moves in mysterious ways.
If it moves at all, in a productive sense 
I was involved a few years ago and TBH it did not take much time and did get me some nice dinners in Berlin and Copenhagen, but really had zero practical value.
However with our new-found presence with in the intention standards community at EHDS, there might be some diplomatic advantage in playing nice. There might also be some practical value if e.g there is some intent to align 13606 datatypes with FHIR.
@Yampeku do you have any insight into the proposed revision?
There is one interesting 13606-based CDR in Barcelona (OntoCDR) Successful Integration of EN/ISO 13606–Standardized Extracts From a Patient Mobile App Into an Electronic Health Record: Description of a Methodology - PMC
I think current proposed changes are the conclusions of the 24305 analysis to align 13606 and FHIR, I would assume we could propose additional changes to align it better with 13606. I would also assume part 2 adopts the latest available version of ADL2.
There have been a few ISO13606 projects in Spain, mostly involving Hospital Clinic de Barcelona and ISCIII. ISO13606 was used for national requirement modelling in the past, but also recently for these covid projects.
So from a CEN perspective and from and EHDS perspective I have heard very little if anything about ISO 13606. I think we should only do this if it does not burn too much time or effort. Silje - any idea what might be involved ?
Might give a little insight.
The ISO 13606 has never been mentioned in any conversation/policy document related to the EHDS. In fact, I believe most of the people and organisations that are currently influencing this are clueless about what the ISO 13606 is.
I know someone who was deeply involved, let me ask.
Jordi
I expect full ISO 24305 mapping to be released in Q1
But 13606 is a TC215 thing, isn’t it? And wasn’t it announced recently that openEHR is now a member of TC215, or did I dream it?
All true, which is why my gut feeling is to show interest and get involved (a bit). More about relationship building than anything else.
Yes I am the rep on TC 251 but there has been no mention at all of ISO 13606 in any of our meetings.
Is it just me, or is that a bit weird that a revision is being started but the committee responsible isn’t aware of it? 
As @Yampeku said above, this is likely to have been fall out from the attempts to align 13606 , FHIR and Contsys. But since we cannot see that document with out paying Swiss Francs we will never know 
Still not started AFAIK, but is expected per usual ISO revision cycles
I wrote some thoughts about this a few evenings ago, but the email may have gone astray at my end. I am writing again now, after further, more considered reflection.
From what others are saying, it sounds that the initiative and planning for this revision are coming principally from ISO. 13606 started as a CEN initiative, I believe - and very much as Dipak Kalra’s baby from the late 90’s, along with Georges de Moor and Gerard Frericks.
Dipak was working for me at UCL and I saw at close quarters the massive energies he and David Lloyd devoted to brokering the contrary perspectives and interests typically in play in such endeavours.
Collaborating to get the openEHR AOM/ADL incorporated there as an informative annexe was politically worthwhile for openEHR, I felt. I didn’t believe that 13606 would gain traction to support wider practical implementation of clinical systems, however. Some openEHR folk were quite cross with me for attempting this peace-maker balancing act!
Dipak became a central figure in leading the standard and its subsequent revision in the ISO domain and I would imagine he may still be involved in scoping and shepherding the current plans. I could talk to him in confidence and find out if you wish. We exchanged Christmas cards with him and Kathryn, a couple of weeks ago.
The standards landscape is quite different now and my inclination, from an openEHR perspective, would be to act as Rachel and Ian advise - somewhere between playing with a straight bat and supping with a long spoon! Silje might see and derive benefit from involvement in the work in context of her growing professional alliances within Norway and the other Baltic countries, of course. She would certainly have a huge amount of skill and experience to add to any new project team established for the revision.
The information I got was that Dipak is leading this revision now. So more info from him would certainly be welcome, especially about the amount of work and travel required (preferably as little as possible of both). Although we have to put our hands up before the 14th if we want to participate.
This is good advice, thank you!
(PS! Although the three Baltic countries are great and admirable nations, Norway isn’t one of them 
)