2010-01-17 TSC WGM Minutes

TSC Sunday evening meeting for 2010 Jan WGM

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Sunday January 17th, 2010, 6-8 PM Phoenix, AZ USA

Q1: 9-10:30 AM

• Roll Call:

Meeting Attendance - :

At	Name	Affiliation	Email Address
x	Calvin Beebe	HL7 SSD SD	cbeebe@mayo.edu
x	Woody Beeler	HL7 FTSD	woody@beelers.com
x	Bill Braithwaite	observer	bbraithwaite@anakam.com
	Bob Dolin	HL7 Chair	BobDolin@gmail.com
x	Chuck Jaffe	HL7 CEO	cjaffe@hl7.org
x	Marc Koehn	invited Guest, HL7 EA IP PM	marc.koehn@gpinformatics.com
x	Austin Kreisler	HL7 DESD	austin.j.kreisler@saic.com
x	Lynn Laakso (scribe, non-voting)	HL7 HQ	lynn@hl7.org
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	Ch.mead@booz.com
x	Galen Mulrooney	invited guest, HL7 SOA
x	Ravi Natarajan	HL7 Affiliate	Ravi.Natarajan@nhs.net
	Ron Parker	HL7 ArB Alternate	rparker@infoway-inforoute.ca
x	John Quinn	HL7 CTO	jquinn@hl7.org
x	Gregg Seppala	HL7 SSD SD Alternate	gregg.seppala@va.gov
x	Helen Stevens	HL7 TSS SD Alternate	helen.stevens@shaw.ca
x	Ed Tripp	HL7 DESD Alternate	Edward.tripp@estripp.com
x	D. Mead Walker	HL7 FTSD Alternate	dmead@comcast.net

• Additions to agenda:
• EA IP and Alpha Project status
  • SAEAF name change: Today in ArB folks with TOGAF experience, Andy Bond with RM-ODP experience. SAEAF is only interested in working interoperability. Suggestion that its new name have ‘interoperability’ in the name to distinguish it from other architecture frameworks. Should the ArB focus time and energy on this? General feeling is yes, TSC wants the name change. Many suggestions, Charlie Mead’s feeling is EIAF…
  • Alpha projects: SAEAF elevator pitch – who should go and write one? Additional EA activities, what should they be?
  • Charlie McCay notes the elevator pitch should be part of an overall communication plan. Need to capture the differences in perception yesterday and document locations. CMead says they will have their documents on their wiki within one month of their approval.
  • CMead also grappled with governance framework vs governance instances and have a plan going forward for information framework. Current GF is actually a collection and issues representing an instance of a governance framework.
  • Marc notes we’ve got SAEAF materials being published. How to get the materials to impact what we do is to run alpha projects. PASS has used SAEAF materials in their process, and we need to start harvesting information. What needs to be reiterated is the state of the organization change from x to y, manifested in changes in foundation documents, changes in tooling, changes in fundamental standards. PSC has started to look at HDF to map to SAEAF and are talking about it on Thursday Q3. Need to instantiate it into our normal things we do. What shall we do with MnM, Vocab, Structured Docs, etc with what activities over what timeline? Should we have a formal representation from these groups in a discussion of SMART objectives for the next cycle? Shift to an implementation committee, folks at this table plus additional reps to move action plans forward related to artifacts under their purview.
  • Ravi asks if we have concept of change control in the framework? CMead says yes. Helen notes EHR feels they’re an outlier committee lacking the same support as other committees and hopes that SAEAF will help committees like EHR receive the same support.
  • Mead supports the idea. If you can go to the foundation committee with a concrete proposal to put before them and see what they say – go in with a plan. Marc notes that would be a preferred approach but part of the buy in will need the foundation committee to build their own alignment.
  • Woody says the sooner we get the foundation models instantiated with the SAEAF the better it will go to sell it. Need to incorporate SAEAF into the mainstream artifacts. Helen asks are we focused on mainline products e.g. V3 and CDA or are we including other products that are reinventing wheels? CMcCay notes the EHR committee should engage in the exercise. Helen notes though EHR has an alpha project there are people in there still trying to figure that out. CMcCay notes Marc’s suggestion is a way of moving on. Build a project plan around the SAEAF, and the process in itself may bring you closer to MnM without taking their resources.
  • Calvin observes the framework provides a way of rationally thinking about the architecture we need to build. Documents co-opted existing architectures. Need to write the story of the architectural footing. Closing the SAEAF project as the framework is defined and need to start the Architecture project.
  • Mead adds the architecture would help EHR to inform them what they need from committees such as MnM, etc. We need to know what questions we need answered. Helen says the two groups need to understand each other. They don’t know to whom to ask which question.
  • CMead noted Sat discussion, when ArB first started discussion the business architecture of HL7 and not the arch of its customers. ECCF is a cross committee matrix. Pieces of the framework won’t make sense. He asks the TSC what would they like to do about EHR? Ambulatory Oncology EHR cited as example they have text requirements that don’t bind to anything.
  • Marc notes Helen’s issue is one of many. We must avoid getting absorbed in any one issue. Comprehensive well-defined specification across the board. How do we get there? If we kicked off a comprehensive architecture project tomorrow who would show up? Where and in what forum do the conversations about the next set of activities need to occur?
  • Galen notes the PASS alpha project came up with SOA artifacts very different from those from two years ago. Don needs to bring those back to the SOA work group to be used. MnM, InM, Struct Docs could loan their expertise to the alpha projects to bring those types of artifacts back to their WGs. He also endorses the idea of a couple of long discussions to get it started. Marc notes most WG have some core artifacts they are responsible, which should all be reviewed in light of the SAEAF. What if between now and Rio each WG identifies the top 5 issues in each WG’s domain? CMcCay notes we’re being asked for an expectation of what is SAEAF going to mean to the WGs. Need to get those learnings into a plan. The combination of those committee plans becomes the plan to develop the EA as a suite of foundational documents that describe the EA for HL7.
  • Ed supports Marc’s proposal and would like to add one thing. Eight alpha projects, only three have produced anything. Ask the others for their objectives between now and May and identify what is making them stuck. If they sign up for an alpha project they need to do it. Woody notes as Calvin reported they are using SAEAF as a vehicle to assess issues so they cannot yet determine how to represent content. Ed notes we should have the projects show us objectives. Helen notes that the SAEAF projects we ‘required’ to be SAEAF need more discretion.
  • Calvin notes CDA R2 stretched existing architecture and tooling beyond what was is available so now have an opportunity to roll it back in, but has concerns that what we have so far is enough to anneal into an architecture. Need project planning for building the architecture.
  • CMead noted after the meeting yesterday we talked about RIM Harmonization meetings that are now dissolved but something like it needs to be convened for the EAF.
  • Mead notes that Charlie Mead said the NCI sent reps to EHR committee and noted they need to add data. The committee has recognized such. We must be careful with our volunteers; we should ask them if they feel it is an issue, had it occurred to them, and then offer to help. If the WG is recalcitrant then go with a harder line.
  • Marc notes we need a plan but who, when are not clear. Targeted individual committee plans might be better.
  • CMcCay notes individual committee plans as well as overall EA activity need to be articulated with that vision piece for the overall process, and what are we trying to achieve.
  • Woody voices a reservation that we gave up the opportunity to discuss such with those committees Weds Q4. Vocab, for example, would have no concept of what we’re trying to do. Marc asks as we’re starting a journey, do we bring the players together to discuss each one’s response to SAEAF?
  • Calvin suggests since SD looked at SAEAF and looked at their products and tried to map to the boxes. It will take beyond this year to fulfill the task. Ask the alpha projects to do the same, identify how all the products fit into the SAEAF framework. CMead notes the goal of the EAS a few years down the road will be a collection of primitives populating the 5 columns and patterns constructed using those primitives. Let’s take the alpha projects and the core committees to say this is the stuff we have and let’s figure out where it goes in the framework. Static semantics pretty much already have their place determined. Helen notes that it will be very useful. CMead notes, however you still need governance of how you put the stuff together.
  • CMcCay notes plans for foundation and other committees to determine short and long term impacts of EAF to their areas, straw man of foundation artifacts mapped to the SAEAF grid. Marc says it seems that groups are expecting that ‘some other group’ will solve the problems. Each group builds their short and long term issues and we look at them together. CMcCay notes that when CMead says primitives he means existing documents or pieces and identify what goes where and what changes. Calvin says there needs to be some rationalization across the org of what the EA becomes. Architecture Harmonization committee? Harmonization had MnM as oversight but participation from many groups, this will be similar. ArB would provide guidance on the architecture. Calvin says getting the communication going would be useful to show the products on the matrix. It may be alpha.2 but at least we’ll have a stake in the ground.
  • Action Items: Marc will write a one pager to summarize the discussion. Further discussion on Tuesday lunchtime. John will send out the snapshot document to the TSC.
  • HSSP Process: Galen felt there was general agreement with some changes to the details. SFMs were at behavioral level. Now when they work with semantics they need to receive from HL7 an ECCF document down to the PIM level; leave the engineering stuff to OMG. Galen agrees. Also have a liaison on the other side at the PISM level that can reflect back to the other levels in HL7. PIM is platform independent, and PISM is platform specific. We would give OMG analysis level artifacts. We may want to sometime specify artifacts at the PISM level and we may. Charlie Mead must leave. Galen notes that the document does not yet use the correct terms to note the expectations of what will be sent to and received from HL7. Once Galen has the edits, with acronyms spelled out, it will be approved as a process with the changes as discussed. Moved by Ed second Woody seconded, Helen opposed otherwise approved.

• Tooling: John Quinn
  • 2009 Tactical Projects Status presentation
  • Tooling budget items reviewed; CTO budget also includes software items used for the website and so on.
  • Tooling to TSC.ppt
  • Much of the Tooling solution vision hoped to come from OHT. Will need to have a dynamic modeler.
  • Operational projects, tooling projects reviewed.
  • Upcoming 2010 projects reviewed.
    • DITA authoring tool being looked at for general publication tool. Austin asked if it’s something we can, in general, use. John notes that he’d need Jane to answer that. Noted that the Operational Projects include both CTO and tooling projects. CMcCay asks what the Publishing committee’s take on the DITA plan; Woody says they have intended to work towards processable artifacts and will have to see how this works. We had an assessment two years ago by Grahame and Lloyd that established DITA as an operational plan, though questions remain. CM noted the publishing handbook expressed how different things are published; those things not in V3 have no documented plan for how they will be brought into the process. Woody thought MDF and HDF are good candidates for DITA. SAEAF was too. CDA R3 without static models in processable formats would not be acceptable. SAEAF content had exceeded non-publishing tools’ capability to handle. John notes the logical next steps should be identified in discussion with Publishing committee in future.
    • Static model designer NHS and VA evaluation; MnM prefers the NHS tool. MnM, Tooling, Education looking at rollout impact.
• Feedback on HQ Support for TSC: Woody votes affirmatively. Charlie asks for what can be done better? Woody feels we should provide GoToMeeting capability to the committees. Need to encourage committees that don’t have access to explore. We also use Doodle for polling, can you use one online during a meeting? Webmeeting, GoToMeeting Corporate version. Ravi notes EtherPad is used by NHS, and also DimDim is another tool. If acquisition of those tools would make it better, we should encourage it. Webex allows attendees to poll during a meeting.
• Lynn notes the TSC is supposed to be reviewed after two years in operation, May 2010? Helen asks she’d like to know what the membership and work groups, and the Board think of the steering divisions and TSC? Why don’t we have HQ add another to their annual surveys? We’ll add to a future concall.
• SMART objective review, for Roadmap Strategic Initiatives – move forward.
• Feedback to TSC from International Affiliate meeting – international endorsement for projects – for Tuesday.

Adjourned 8:21 PM.