Hi All,
Several people had asked me to let them know how this meeting in Nairobi
went, so here goes! Of course these are my personal opinions and
impressions. 
My already too short 15 minute presentation on comparing OpenMRS
concepts and Archetypes plus Vocabulary management in Archetypes was
scrunched to 5 minutes. Needless to say I was not pleased and was very
concerned (and nervous) about trying to convey anything meaningful in
five minutes. I believe that I got across the differences between
'data' (no context) and 'information' (data w/semantic context) and that
managing healthcare information is difficult. No matter how simple you
want to try to make it.
The good news is that there was already interest about learning all that
is openEHR from the attendees. This meant that there were many
breakfast, lunch, dinner and beer presentation opportunities. My
take-away is that I was fairly successful in these small gatherings. The
"decision makers" that I spoke with were all very interested in pursuing
the archetype approach in future healthcare IT projects. There was only
one specific project discussed but I believe that the future is bright
for many more.
The workshop itself was great. Probably the best I have ever attended.
Though confusing at first, the dynamic nature of the agenda was fitted
to feedback from the attendees. This made for a very productive
environment. The attendees included programmers, health informaticians,
physicians, ministry of health reps, academics, consultants, standards
experts, librarians and others. The organizers did a wonderful job of
selecting the mix of talent of the attendees.
One session of note was when Mead Walker (HL7 ARB Chair) gave a
presentation on HL7 v3 Messaging. It was an interesting and informative
session. At the end I was asked to contrast some points he made using
openEHR. I did so with the reference model and some issues about process
such as the change management plans. I was very fortunate to have Dr.
Beatriz de Faria Leao (Brazil) at the session and she handled the
archetypes and tools demonstration. It went VERY well. An interesting
comment that I haven't quite reconciled yet though is that when I asked
Mead for his feedback on that session he said that HL7 v3 and openEHR
are competitors and that we need to clarify our positions so that
customers aren't confused. Though, during the session he was adamant
that no one of any authority in HL7 had ever said that HL7 v3 was an EHR
model. It was strictly a messaging framework. So, I remain confused
about the HL7 mission.
Anyway, it was a great trip and I am very excited about the future work
to come for those with openEHR knowledge and experience.
Cheers,
Tim
