2009-09-19 TSC WGM Minutes

TSC Saturday meeting for September 2009 WGM

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Saturday September 19, 9 am - 5 PM

Q1: 9-10:30 AM

Meeting called to order by Charlie McCay at 9:05 AM
Roll Call:

At	Name	Affiliation	Email Address
x	Calvin Beebe	HL7 SSD SD	cbeebe@mayo.edu
x	Woody Beeler	HL7 FTSD	woody@beelers.com
x	Jane Curry	ArB	janecurry@healthinfostrategies.com
	Bob Dolin	HL7 Chair-elect	BobDolin@gmail.com
x	Grahame Grieve	HL7 Australia	grahame@kestral.com.au
joined Q3	John Koisch	HL7 ArB	jkoisch@guidewirearchitecture.com
x	Austin Kreisler	HL7 DESD	austin.j.kreisler@saic.com
x	Lynn Laakso (scribe)	HL7 HQ	lynn@hl7.org
Joined Q2	Patrick Loyd	Gordon Point Informatics	Patrick.Loyd@gpinformatics.com
x	Ken McCaslin	HL7 TSS SD	Kenneth.H.McCaslin@QuestDiagnostics.com
x	Charlie McCay (chair)	HL7 TSC Chair	charlie@ramseysystems.co.uk
x	Charlie Mead	HL7 ArB	Charlie.mead@booz.com
x	Galen Mulrooney	US Veterans’ Affairs, SOA WG	galen.mulrooney@va.gov
x	Ravi Natarajan	HL7 Affiliate	Ravi.Natarajan@nhs.net
x	John Quinn	HL7 CTO	jquinn@hl7.org
x	Gregg Seppala	HL7 SSD SD	gregg.seppala@va.gov
x	Ioana Singureanu	HL7 FTSD	ioana@eversolve.com
x	Helen Stevens Love	HL7 TSS SD	helen.stevens@shaw.ca
x	Ed Tripp	HL7 DESD	Edward.tripp@estripp.com

• Additions to agenda: Woody noted for Monday night there were a couple things, ballot schedule for next year and a 30-second announcement; noted that is on Q1 agenda. Agenda accepted
• Agenda
• Project Approval: by DESD for RCRIM: BRIDG DAM Project Scope Statement, at TSC Tracker 1312
  • Loyd and Duteau working on harmonization of BRIDG to RIM under NCI contract. CDISC taking it through JIC and ISO process without the RIM piece. Charlie Mead showed a Proposed Structure for BRIDG 3.0 slide. NCI is funding Layer 3 for a RIM-compliant layer, will that be balloted with RCRIM. NCI is also mapping it to SAEAF, a conceptual model and a platform independent model. CDISC going to JIC instead of through HL7 to get ISO brand instead of ANSI brand. They need to be joined up at the JIC level. These two projects need to be linked. We’d like comments sought from both the ISO and HL7/JIC community and resolution handled jointly. Need to get HL7 comments into the ISO process. Charlie Mead says we’d want CDISC and HL7 comments synchronized. John says we can take advantage of the ballot cycle, using the extra room in the ISO ballot (5 months) for the HL7 ballot (30 days). Ed Hammond says JIC agreement is all participating groups vote on the same document, and comments handled by collaborative group, led by CDISC. Ed confirms this is, indeed, a JIC project. Woody suggests that it needs to be tightly integrated, even a project prerequisite, to the ISO JIC project. They should be balloting the same set of documents. The SCC (semantic coordinating committee) with HL7 and CDISC, has a list within section 7 of the PSS for what will be balloted. JIC ballot needs to stay within this schedule. Mead confirms. What do people want to see in the Project Scope Statement? The development should be managed as a single JIC project with ISO. Helen indicates this project should have responsibility for half of that coordination. Charlie McCay asks to take this offline.
• Publication Request Approval: Vocabulary submits Common Terminology Services R2 for DSTU publication, see request at TSC Tracker # 1314
  • Austin objects to this proposal as no reconciliation package posted. (Commenters not notified of the disposition of their comments). Woody says HL7 discussion of CTS2 model for vocabulary whether required as part of OMG process to be considered as part of the final product. SFM is not a detailed model. Other architectural issues exist, to prevent approval of publication. Ioana suggests a recommendation that along with posting of reconciliation package, that CTS2 work with ArB as part of their alpha project process for SAEAF. Grahame had heard that disposition of comments was not needed for DSTU. Woody clarifies that not all negatives need to be withdrawn but the reconciliation still needs to be posted and negatives addressed. We can re-address this on Tuesday if they post reconciliation over the weekend. Ken moves to table to Tuesday, Ravi second. Capture date posted reconciliation to notified (verified by Don Lloyd) and date commenters notified on the request to publish. Motion to table unanimously approved.
• Review of decisions since last WGM – no discussion.
• 2010 Ballot Cycle - impacts of Work Group Meeting schedule for T3: Oct 3-8 2010 to Jan 9-14 2011. Woody describes the late fall meeting 2010 and early January meeting for 2011 Publishing calendar indicates the committees would have only 4 weeks to get material in. Woody says they will suggest on Monday night that domain content for V3 be deferred for the January 2011 ballot. Advantage is that Tooling projects could verify publishing capabilities during that cycle. Ioana asks if we can give the committees a choice. Woody says we would provide the suggestion and let the work groups push back. This does not include implementation guides and such, just the contents of the V3 ballot package. Austin says we need to make it clear this is happening so they’re aware, Helen adds that is why we publish the ballot cycle a year in advance. Woody will take this discussion under advisement to the committee. Woody says they have discussed whether they will not publish past material if it has not changed, not to include normative material, it means taking stuff apart. This does not include common materials (datatypes, wrappers etc). Gregg asks if the three-year plans are in a state so we can see what we have in the hopper for that T3. Helen cautions against removing existing normative content for those who want to compare consistency of new material to existing previously approved material. Fear is that they are implementing from the ballot site instead of using the schedule. Next fall’s meeting is also back to back over ISO meeting. McCay asks what is the process? Lillian sends out information, Mark McDougall takes input, check with the hotel to find dates available. Hammond says there is some attempt to track meetings over time but there are so many meetings it is hard to keep them straight. Woody suggests we get the Board to endorse the notion is difficult to be outside the Jan/May/Sep schedule. TSC needs documenting the criteria and process for WGM scheduling.
• Roadmap discussion
  • How can the TSC model Roadmap-driven activities for the WGs and the org. Does the Roadmap need to change for that to happen?
  • How do we drive it forward, how to demonstrate benefits (carrots and sticks)...
  • Review the use of available metrics, e.g. Work Group Health
  • Discussion: Roadmap effort going on for two years now. As a rhetorical question, how many know what the five strategies and the 27 tasks are? McCay wants discussion whether the Roadmap is a good idea, do we agree that the structure as 5 strategies, 27 tasks makes sense, how can we make sense of the roadmap being offered to us, how do we want to see it change to make it more effective and useful, what suggestions to make it more useful to the organization as a whole.
    • Ioana indicates the PSS has the 5 strategies, Project Services has integrated into a document each has to fill out when starting a project. How does indicating the checkbox, shape my thinking as I’m developing my project? Who looks to see the artifacts fulfill the intent of the strategy? Helen asks if the TSC would reject a scope statement if one of the boxes not checked? Or if the boxes are checked appropriately. Calvin says the roadmap seems to focus on the changes we want, not what we’re doing. 80% of what we’re doing isn’t reflected in the Roadmap. McCay indicates the discussion says we’re not engaging with the Roadmap effect tively. The Roadmap that states what change we want to see is not the best use of an organization strategy. Hammond indicates the Board spent time on the Roadmap without the involvement of the TSC. Board’s contribution of the Roadmap with the strategic elements, but still needs the technical and operational components. What level to put things into the roadmap from strategic vs operational perspective. Putting active projects into the roadmap is not useful. Degree of explicitness is something that needs to be determined. Tripp adds that strategy documents need to be reviewed and refreshed at least annually. How does the TSC use the information in the Roadmap in what the Board needs and wants. Ken says there’s lack of clarity of the intent of the Roadmap as a tactical document versus as a strategic document. The five Strategies are strategic and the supporting 80+ items are tactical, but it’s all lumped into the Roadmap. Woody says MnM found problems in not having every project aligned with a strategy. Each committee should be trying to support at least one of them, none of the strategies should have no committees supporting it. Calvin says in reviewing administrative secretarial support to the WG, we talked about offering it to those trying to align with SEAF. Oh, and SAEAF should be on the Roadmap. Do we allocate Publishing or give it away freely. Austin agrees we can use those Roadmap alignments to determine how we allocate those resources. Tripp says that maintenance of existing standards are not necessarily listed as one of those strategic objectives; add some operational goals or core principles to the strategies. McCay says five years ago groups didn’t even publish their reconciliation packages. Now we can say unless they are in the green on WG Health perhaps they don’t get resource dropped in to help them out. Ravi adds there must be balance that not everything can be linked to the vision but there must be some things. McCay notes that IGs in conflict with existing standards might not be part of the vision but might be a very important activity. Ken asks if things not aligning with the roadmap indicate they have failed in some way? Woody compares it to eating and breathing, some core elements we must treat as critical ongoing activities: active concern for quality, maintenance. Hammond says it would be valuable to recognize areas to worry about in the future. Need to worry about what HL7 will do on the broad set of archetypes and templates. Make sure we advertise it to the different work groups; get it in front of them. We think this is important. Quinn notes that the Board spends more time on topics that are tied to the strategies; as the Board nears agreement on those topics the questions come to the TSC for operationalization. Board is spending less time on tactical things that we the TSC talk about. Less time spent educating the Board on what the committees are doing. McCay also adds that there’s easier ways for them to see what the Work Groups are doing. Still a lack of clarity around what the roadmap achieves and what it means to this group. Austin adds a strategic roadmap without strategic resources tacked on to it is useless. Resources coming in from the work groups bubble up. Board needs to allocate strategic resources to drive those strategies forward. Hammond agrees, but: Board and TSC need some direct conversation; board has discussed if HL7 mission and vision is accepted by the entire organization they need to fill in the gaps. Work groups tend to do what they want to do. Suggested that developing standards to fill in the gaps not currently addressed by the work groups doing what they want to do, met with pushback. Not just a Board issue and not just a TSC issue. Gregg opines the Roadmap strategies irrelevant to what we’re trying to do, with the core business of HL7 to producing standards, and closing eyes to select one of the checkboxes but not having it drive what they’re doing. Mead says this is déjà vu from CDISC board meeting, danger in only listening to the users. Need someone looking at 3-6 year plans into the future, where users are only looking at their short term needs. Ioana recounts that the strategy needs to be ‘sold’ to the people. Seppala clarifies: in terms to applicability to TSC managing day to day technical stuff, don’t see a strategy to 'keep doing your core business'. Calvin states the model of the RIM brought control and order to some chaos. Intent of SAEAF layers on top for dynamics and other aspects. If you want a change, don’t go out and beat up on the work groups. Give them an environment to work in, rationalization, maybe some resources, but recognize the work groups come together based on their common interests. Hammond asks what should the board be doing to encourage the work groups to fill the gaps, how to move ahead with things people don’t yet see the need to do. Mead indicates that the ones that do the work are from a certain category of stakeholders, but there are other categories of stakeholders that don’t necessarily show up and do the work.
  • McCay indicates we need some further discussion on this. Roadmap gives long term direction but is not clear how the TSC interacts with it. Continue the discussion in the TSC with some ideas pulled together by Lynn, with input from Calvin Beebe, Charlie Mead, Ed Tripp, Ken McCaslin, Ed Hammond. Action Item to Calvin and Charlie to come up with a brief for the TSC, by Tuesday lunch.

Q2: 11 AM-12:30 PM

Return to order 11:05 am.

• Note to committee: Will need to elect TSC Chair after the Plenary Meeting; clarify process.
  • Send nominations to Lynn after the WGM and have a vote on the list, or surveymonkey. Calvin moves that nominations be submitted during the WGM for election after the plenary. Motion withdrawn
• (30 mins) Review Open Issues List
  • TSC Tracker 323: Determine/recommend the tools to be used across the organization; joint session with Tooling and ES Thursday Q1.
    • Current Status: Electronic Svcs WG to make a recommendation
    • Question was raised that we have trackers; do we leave an item on the tracker until it’s completed, or do we close it after the task is assigned to an appropriate delegate? If Electronic Services opened a project to address, then we can close the tracker. If we’re comfortable that ES will address this appropriately, we can close it. Ken moves to close 323 and 457 as ES has projects open to address. Calvin seconds. Ioana makes a friendly amendment that we include the reference to the ES project items within the TSC Tracker. Motion carried unanimously.
  • TSC Tracker 457: need guidelines on Work Group meeting minutes
    • review updates to cochairs handbook re: online discussion threads like Skype
  • TSC Tracker 586:Project SVCs to add section on backward compatibility to project template -
    • Current Status: Targeted for Jan 2010. Ken motion, Ioana second to close. Unanimously carried.
  • TSC Tracker 736: Identify business case and success criteria for projects
    • Current Status: Assigned to Charlie McCay. Business case is not part of the task description, only success criteria. Woody states that business case is a less clear term. Patrick asks how many projects don’t have a clear ballot cycle. Calvin says they had a certification test as a project. Austin asks if we need a business case for the ‘standard’ the project proposes to develop. Avoiding standards that get developed but never implemented. Helen indicates that DSTU is used for that. Calvin adds that standards will get dropped if they’re not used after their 5 year for renewal. Helen further adds the PSS already has the success criteria. Austin moves to close, Ken second; unanimously carried.
  • TSC Tracker 749: Review the role of the steering divisions
    • Austin and Ed meeting with Work Groups lacking Work Group Health measures to provide advice and prodding on where the ‘problem’ work groups should go. Discussion Monday night on what to do with Domain Experts – too large to operate. May need to split it. Woody thinks this is a worthy thing to track. Ed adds that the Steering Divisions don’t have SWOT analyses or Mission and Charter. Austin adds how they play into the SAEAF framework. Woody suggests we discuss again in four months’ time, with a reminder come December. Helen points out we have not documented the role of the Steering Divisions. Table issue and Ed and Austin will provide update at the next WGM.
    • Action Item from 2009-07-06_TSC_Call_Minutes
      • Ed Tripp will come up with some suggestions.
      • the GOM does not have a mechanism for the SD or TSC to initiate the closing of a WG. Perhaps that should be addressed as part of the role of the Steering Division?
  • TSC Tracker 751: Assign a review and completion date for each item on the issue tracker -
    • Current Status: need responses from assignees; Charlie McCay says under our Friday calls with John we review dates for next discussion on the TSC. Close this item once we set dates on the next Friday call.
  • TSC Tracker 860: Define role of Affiliate TSC Member
    • Current Status: noted by Ravi in item history in July. Difficult position he is in without getting feedback. Helen adds the Affiliate Council Sunday meeting now has separate section for TSC-related items. Is the role to represent an international view or to bring international topics to this table, or both? Is it that you pipe in to note when something should be universal realm or realm specific? Role of Affiliate rep is to represent the Affiliate organizations on TSC matters. Ravi says most affiliates are sitting and waiting for where to get on, as they are just coming into standards adoption. Don’t think we are doing enough to help them out. Not asking questions because they don’t know where to approach. Could Ravi discuss in a white paper on what the issues are and how to make the Affiliates’ council more vibrant and effectively engaged? Ravi says it can be closed; Woody moves to close, Ed second; unanimously approved.
  • TSC Tracker 890: Consistency of Clinical content / Overlap of discussion on options for classcode for medical diagnoses and related topics
    • Current Status: Charlie Mead says the ECCF component is capable to address but in the presence of human governance. ArB will come to TSC shortly with requests for assistance on how to operationalize governance. Charlie McCay says the TSC will have to come to the ArB to ask for a toolkit to administer governance. ArB is the architecture and TSC is operational. Framework defined in which governance can occur but the actual governance is still an issue. Not just Patient Care, but OO, other work groups also having this issue. DCM now relying on other components. SAEAF is ready to address but needs the governance. McCay says where it can be done within the Steering Divisions, it should, but SSD SD and DESD are overlapped all over the place. Mead says that the problem at the NCI was that 'you can’t tell us top-down what to do'. McCay doesn’t feel that is the case here. We know what ‘we’ want to do, and know that there are others wanting something else, come and tell us how to sort this out. TSC you ought to do your job. Austin says there is a minority that want to stay in their corner and not come out to play. Most are willing to work with the others. We already know this is a mess across steering divisions, needs organization-wide governance. Can’t be delegated to the Steering Divisons. Mead adds that governance takes bandwidth. McCay asks if it’s worth keeping the tracker open in its current state. We likely won’t get Patient Care to attend and present. Austin says when we come up for the next review if they don’t attend, close it. McCay says he’s hearing that Patient Care is not engaging appropriately in the HL7 organization. Patrick noted he recently attended an ISO DCM ballot reconciliation and they have not produced much for models yet. They’re not as far as people think. It’s not a JIC project. Hammond would like to see it clearly defined as it’s important, and have an official status; it seems to meander with no formal status. McCay says there is an ISO NWIP for quality standards for DCMs, as an approach to pan-standards content modeling. Hammond thinks it’s important for HL7 to be part of this and needs to be formal, with balloting process. McCay says then, we must require at least one project within HL7 to address that; it is a Patient Care project. So far, nothing has been voted on in HL7. Austin recounts that Patient Care says there are DCMs that other work groups in HL7 are ignoring. Galen adds that the same issue with CMETs, how do we reuse content. Mead states that it is a governance issue. Helen asks how much teeth does our group have; the representative of the group has not responded to our requests to come to our table, and they are operating outside the realm of the other work groups. The TSC should be saying, we’re going to shut you down unless you can show us you are executing this project as approved. Ravi says if we can shoot down CTS2 publication as not procedurally correct, can we shut the DCM project down (PI #320)? ISO can accept as part of NWIP a draft standard, the reconciliation was dealing with comments all over the place. Hammond says we should distinguish what we think we need to do versus what is actually being done. Patrick says we need to talk to William. Noted that Kevin had been unable to attend the TSC Calls. The PSS needs to be revisited, up for review back through Patient Care, Steering Division and back to the TSC. TSC should ask for revision of the Project Scope Statement, alpha project for SAEAF work, and needs to have clear ballot and visibility plans to determine how it fits in. Calvin asks if the GOM supports the TSC’s ability to do this; we should propose also an amendment for what we’re planning. We could suspend approval on the project or ask them to revise the proposal. Georgia 6, Q2 Thursday. Motion by Charlie Mead: suspend project and revoke project approval until they come with a new proposal. This would effectively prohibit them from balloting, although they have not expressed an intent to ballot. Austin seconds. Hammond fears they will go to the outside world and tell them that HL7 has shut us down. Helen offers friendly amendment that we actively work with them to create new project. Patrick says there’s not a motion to revoke in Robert’s Rules, only a motion to reconsider. Ioana agrees. They can still use the work group meeting room space, we avoid negative perception. Woody says we need a hallway discussion from John to get things in order. Galen suggested a friendly amendment that we revoke at the end of the week; give them the time during the WGM to establish a clear scope. Tripp suggests we send one or two representatives to their first meeting this week to present our discussion and expectations. Helen adds the Steering Division chairs are the right people, tell them the first subsequent call after the WGM will entertain a motion to rescind project approval. Helen moves to table Charlie’s motion to the next conference call. Calvin seconds; motion unanimously approved.
    • Helen moves the cochairs of SD take action to inform them of our discussion and help them take action to address our concerns, including the elaboration of the scope statement and that it must be a SAEAF project and JIC project. Charlie Mead seconds. Ioana asks are we asking all projects from here forward to be SAEAF projects? Feeling is no, only those with cross-work group considerations. Patrick says the ArB is running out of bandwidth to address many more additional SAEAF projects. Austin recounts that the issues they have raised warrant it being a SAEAF project. Friendly amendments ensued. Ioana would like guidance on selecting SAEAF projects. That discussion was set aside. Motion unanimously approved.
    • Ioana moved to formalize guidance for the work groups on which projects must be SAEAF alpha projects. Charlie suggests we have time this afternoon and tomorrow. Motion withdrawn.
• (15 mins) Discuss deliverables coming out of Working Group Meeting; remove from standing agenda items.
• (15 mins) Review TSC Mission and Charter - how are we doing against it? ‘Identify conflict’ too soft, the TSC should resolve. Ken suggests we state we 'coordinate between components of the Working Group'. What are the definitions of 'components of the working group'. Helen finds it a grammatical nightmare. Ken asks for wordsmithing. Action Item: Helen and Lynn will have something by Tuesday. The TSC is the source of truth for technical issues, up or down the chain. Composition section has alternate definition not adequately defined, no Board Liaison – drop the section and point to the GOM. Charlie Mead says SAEAF has specific language in it to note relationships with outside and inside groups. Mead will email it to Lynn.
• (15 mins) Review TSC Communications Plan - how are we doing against it?
• (15 mins) Review Technology Plan 2009 and update milestones

Q3: 1:30-3 PM

• (15 mins) Review TSC SWOT and Three-Year Plan (remember this?)
• (15 mins) Review ISO/CEN/HL7 tracking. (ISO_and_JIC_projects)
• (15 mins) ArB representation in GOM
• (15 mins) Tooling
• (30 mins)RASCI chart review, role of TSC versus other organizations

Q4: 3:30-5PM

• (30 mins, to be continued Sunday) ArB / Enterprise Architecture Implementation Project (EA IP) governance and process
  • Statement of objectives
  • Proposed implementation strategy (best examples, basic documents/building blocks, or high-profile projects)
  • Timetable of requiring compliance
  • Levels of compliance, do they exist, what are they
  • Metrics of success
  • Outreach, marketing success
    • SAEAF work beyond HL7
    • Related activities, other related projects
• Roadmap followup
• Messages to:
  • the Affiliates Council Sunday;
  • WGM attendees Tuesday AM,
  • to the Board Tuesday PM,
  • to the Membership (Technical Newsletter);
  • how to use the Work Group Health metrics to promote, generate revenue, and provide guidance.
  • TSC election results to be announced Tuesday AM