Meeting-20080913

TSC - Technical Steering Committee

Saturday, September 13, 2008 9:00 AM (US Pacific Time)
GoToMeeting at https://www.gotomeeting.com/join/822618174
GoToMeeting ID: 822-618-174 

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Attendance

Expected

• CTO: John Quinn
• Domain Experts: Jim Case (primary), Austin Kreisler (alternate)
• Foundation & Technology: Ioana Singureanu (primary), Woody Beeler (alternate)
• Structure & Semantic Design: Calvin Beebe (primary), Gregg Seppala (alternate)
• Technical & Support Services: Ken McCaslin (primary), Helen Stevens Love (alternate)
• Affiliate: Frank Oemig,
• ARB Chair: Charlie Mead
• HQ: Karen Van Hentenryck

invited

• Charles Jaffe (CEO); Ed Hammond (HL7 Chair); Chuck Meyer (HL7 Vice Chair); Ed Tripp (newly elected TSC member to take office Jan. 2009); Ravi Natarajan (newly elected TSC member to take office Jan. 2009)

Agenda

1. (5 min) Meeting Admin
   1. Roll Call - The following individuals were present: Charlie McCay, John Koisch, Jim Case, Woody Beeler, Gregg Seppala, Austin Kreisler, Ken McCaslin, John Quinn, Jane Curry, Chuck Meyer, Karen Van Hentenryck Calvin Beebe, Frank Oemig, Ed Hammond, Freida Hall, Dave Hamill (Q4).
   2. How well is the TSC functioning – Charlie McCay asked the TSC members for feedback on how they feel the TSC is functioning. He feels that the group been good with the reactive and day-to-day issues, but less effective with planning issues. He noted there is good attendance at conference calls but observed that not much work is being done via the listserv between calls. Several methods were discussed for increasing the effectiveness of the TSC. ACTION ITEM: The TSC members decided to do more routine voting online voting and use the calls for planning/strategic issues. The process will be worked out off-line.
   3. Agenda review:
      • Getting new TSC members up to speed - There were questions on how the new TSC members will be brought up to speed. Van Hentenryck noted that they were invited to join the TSC meetings in Vancouver. They will also be added to the TSC list and encouraged to participate in the weekly calls to be brought up to speed.
      • Laboratory Work Group – Austin Kreisler indicated that the Lab group is challenged and they are discussing what needs to be done. Co-chairs being laid off and/or re-directed and not able to do their work. The Work Group members are also unable to participate as needed. There is a dissolution of WG volunteers and this needs discussion.
      • Dissolution of volunteer resources - Singurenau would like a brief discussion regarding the possibility of WGs being supported by administrative staff.
2. Q1 – Review Issues Log/HDF
   • Issues log
   1. • 319 – This is still an issue. We are about to violate our principles RE backwards compatibility. Will keep this as a TSC issue. Need task force to deal with this. ACTION ITEM: Quinn will lead the task force. Hot Topic scheduling for MnM will occur on Sunday,Q3. Quinn feels this should be resolved by next meeting. INM, MNM, ITS, pubs need to be involved in the solution. Identifry issues and potential solutions this week.
      • 321 – Keep as open. Will expire the item if not resolved by Jan 2009.
      • 322 – Ballot issue that is still open.
      • 323 – Jane Curry is working on tooling proposal. Implications will be considered when dealing with this. Once this is in place T3SD will develop some policy. This is WG collaboration type of tools, not RMIM designers. ACTION ITEM: Electronic Svcs will make a recommendation by January 2009 meeting. Now that wiki is HL7, the mandate to move things to web site. Once we have the proposal we can develop appropriate policies.
      • Closed
      • 329 – Close
      • 332 – This is still an open issue. HL7 completed work goes to ISO, This is outside JIC work. If work needs to be modified to be an international standard, then it needs to go to JIC. Hammond will provide the template. ACTION ITEM: Quinn will update the document that is available online and then we’ll close this item
      • 339 – Closed
      • 382 – Will close with PIC releases its generic updated DMPs
      • 383 - Close. INM has a task force dealing with this. whether fields length should be normative
      • 388 – Wilfred is working on updating Grorge. When that upgrade is completed, Wilfred will turn his attention to these changes
      • 400 – Closed and referred to Affiliate council
      • 401 – Closed. This is being dealt with by a Board task force. Another issue has bubbled up RE vocabulary. Currently there is no method for binding vocab. HITSP Foundation work group is thinking of becoming a WG and balloting these as informative docs. This is related to how US deals with its vocabulary.
      • 405 – Closed – HQ will create an DB similar to the V2 and CDA databases
      • 410 – This is being dealt with, short term, by the contract with Ted Klein and Russ Hamm. The chronic problem remains. Short term we may wish to have a contract with Ted/Russ to address this. Long term, this will be solved by the appropriate tooling. This will be rsolved when the chronic problem is addressed.
      • 457 – Still open and will be discussed in Q4
      • 586 - Need check box or text bxs on the project form
      • 587 – Still opened but should be closed when Don does this.
      • 588 – Still open
      • 589 – Wilfred will do this
      • 590 – Still open
      • 591 – Still open
      • 592 – Closed
      • 593 – Open
      • 596 – Still open. Beebe to make recommendation
      • 597 – Open
      • 611 – Closed.
3. Q2 – Roadmap Review - Hammond gave an overview/history on the Roadmap document. The Roadmap document was originally much longer. but over the course of several months, we’ve collapsed several issues into one. We now have a spreadsheet of tasks that can be sorted and will be tracked. Hammond noted that the tasks must be clear enough that the person responsible for the tasks understands what need to be accomplished and what the deliverable is. Staff has developed a process to track the tasks and vett and disposition the suggestions. Hammond noted that the EHR WG, for example, gave us great detail regarding what needs to be done. We collapsed many of those details into a single task on the Roadmap and pushed the details back to the WGs. Dates have been assigned to each task, and the TSC should look at the overall plan and to those tasks for which it has responsibility. Jaffe wanted the TSC to review the document first before it was opened up to the rest of the co-chairs. Hammond noted that we need TSC feedback on the dates and the details. Quinn estimated, from his perspective, the resources, (both time and $) required to accomplish the tasks. The TSC may WGs may have different estimates. Quinn also noted that the Roadmap tasks will be in competition with some of the other things that need to be done in the WGs or things they wish to do. Beeler suggested that the TSC scope its discussion so that the group doesn't get mired in the details. McCay feels that the TSC has until Sunday to confirm the dates in the Roadmap document and suggested that the group vote on the dates on Sunday evening. McCaslin is less interested in voting on dates as he is on agreeing on the tasks. Hammond noted that the intent was never to have the TSC vote on the dates or tasks, but to get their input on the document itself. McCay noted that the document was distributed to the TSC a couple of weeks ago, but not many TSC members commented on this document. This was not because TSC members don’t have comments but because they were asked to comment during a particularly busy time. Kresiler noted that he doesn’t see the connection between the Roadmap and what 90% of the WGs are working on. Quinn and Hammond responded that putting into the Roadmap what all the WGs are doing was inappropriate. What we need to do is match the work of the WGs' three year plans with the Roadmap plan. Seeing that connection is not apparent. Hammond asked Kresiler to submit those comments to us. Quinn observed that Board members elected by membership do not see that gulf. Stevens Love noted that Canada has a similar disconnect. McCay feels that the Roadmap is not a Roadmap of what the organization is doing, but represents areas that need change. McCay would like to what the purpose of the Roadmap is--what will it be used for? actually going to use this document form. If the purpose of the document is to communicate with outside stakeholders and inform them of the changes coming down the road, this is good. If the purpose of the doc is to inform the organization, it will not be particularly effective. Singureanu noted that there is a mix of tactical and strategic tasks. Beeler feels that you need to trace back to the five strategies. He feels that everything that Kresiler wants to see can fall into the five categories that are represented by the five strategies.

Critique is that the 2009 Roadmap committee needs to work at similar level of granularity for the tasks.

McCay would like to know what the purpose of the document will be. Hammond noted that the Roadmap will not be used to manage projects. Process that Beeler suggested – that we look at the strategies rather than the tasks—is a good one. Kreisler noted that we need to make the purpose of the document be made very clear as they will have the same comments on the tasks that the TSC. Stevens Love noted that the task list is not a communications plan but the high level strategies are.

Need to get consensus on how to communicate the strategies to the membership. Then we need to operationalize the strategies. That is what the the task list is trying to do. Stevens Love suggested that we put together a focus group on each strategy. Hammond noted that is a great idea but we are already having trouble getting volunteers to staff the other initiatives. ACTION ITEM: the strategies and task list documents need to articulate their intended use. Hammond noted that people are welcome to provide any kind of feedback on the tasks to improve the document. How would you phrase one of these strategies in lab, pharmacy, immunization ,etc. Where we are going is intra organization –that is the big shift and where V3 is going.. From marketing communications perspective this is important. Strategy 4 represents a major shift in how WGs are presenting their work. Also, the strategy is represented in a way make it seem like EHR and PHR are the same thing.

ACTION ITEM: Need to correct the fact that PHR is referred to as personal health records and public health record.

ACTION ITEM: TSC will draft a document that articulates what the Roadmap means to the TSC and WGs. If we adopt the Roadmap, everything that the WGs do should related back to the Roadmap. May we need a glossary of what some of the terms here mean.

McCay – back to the original discussion of what is the purpose of this document. Is it what is going to change or what is the organization going to work on in the next three years. McCay thinks that it should summarize what the organization is going to be working on in the next three years. Beeler feels that is expressed in the strategies. He feels we need to ask if the WGs are doing things that support the strategies. If they are doing things that don’t support the strategies we may need to intervene. The strategies are what we want to do in the three years (our direction—the breadth of all the things that need to be done and a recognition that some things need to change to get us where we want to be.

Strategy 1

§ Beeler – thinks technical architecture needs to be added § Stevens Love wants examples to be clearly examples and ensure people know it is not a definitive list § Case – didn’t see strategy that looks at structure of organization and makes appropriate change (continuous process improvement).Maybe add a sub bullet under here to address this § Love – strategy 1.4 – she thinks this belongs in strategy 4. Others felt this point was trying to address the technical architecture.. § Love suggested that we add the word “products” to the end of strategy 1

Strategy 2

§ Beeler – 2.4 – wanted CEN to be in there. § Item 3 should use same wordage that introduced item 4. Title should use the term SDO § McCay – there is US, international, and other other regions. We should make that explicit § McCaslin – questioned in a strategy document the tactical things. Need to focus on having relationships and put the tactial elements in the task list document. § Love – have two distinct points – one that speaks to US and one that speaks to Intl. § Oemig – we have SDOs and other orgs. On intl basis and by affiliate basis. The by affiliate basis items should be listed elsewhere. § Beeler feels that itl moves to item 3. he will add this via the comment site. § McCaslin – struggled with fact that we are making this US centric and thus he agrees with Woody’s comment.

Strategy 3 § Beeler – implementation tools may need to be mentioned here

Strategy 4 – have already talked about at length

Strategy 5 Beeler – is there value in broadening widely and throwing in scientists rather than just clinicians.

1. Q3 – Tooling/ArB Work
   • Update on tooling initiative/next steps
   • Discussion around governance around enterprise architecture and SOA
2. Q4 – Project/Work Group Management
   • Work Group health metrics
   • 3 year plans
   • SWOTs