2016-05-07 TSC WGM Agenda

TSC Saturday meeting for Montreal WGM

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TSC WGM Agenda/Minutes

HL7 TSC Meeting Minutes Location:		Date: 2015-10-03 Time: (9:00 am Eastern)
Facilitator: Ken McCaslin		Note taker(s): Anne Wizauer
Attendee	Name	Affiliation
x	Calvin Beebe	HL7 SSD SD Co-Chair
Regrets	Woody Beeler	TSC Member Emeritus
x	Giorgio Cangioli	HL7 Affiliate Representative
x	Lorraine Constable	HL7 ARB Co-Chair
Regrets	Gora Datta	HL7 SSD SD Co-Chair
x	Jean Duteau	HL7 Affiliate Representative
Regrets	Freida Hall	Adhoc Member - GOM Expert
x	Russ Hamm	HL7 FTSD Co-chair
?	Stan Huff	HL7 Immediate Past Board Chair (member ex officio w/ vote)
x	Chuck Jaffe	HL7 CEO (member ex officio w/o vote)
x	Tony Julian
Regrets	Andy Stechishin	HL7 T3SD Co-Chair
x	Sandra Stuart	HL7 T3SD Co-Chair
?	Pat Van Dyke	HL7 Board Chair (member ex officio w/ vote)
x	Dave Hamill	HL7 Staff
x	Karen Van Hentenryck	HL7 Staff
x	Katherine Duteau	Guest
Quorum Requirements (Co-chair +5 with 2 SD Reps) Met: (yes/No)

Agenda Topics

Homework

1. Review Definition of Substantivity
2. Review Top priority items from the Strategic Priorities Survey

Q1 - 9 am to 10:30 am

Roadmap and HL7 Strategic Issues:

1. Roll Call and Introduction of visitors (including declaration of interests)
2. Additions to, and acceptance of, agenda:
3. CTO Goals
4. (May) Discuss TSC Multi-Year Plan
5. (May) Form Ad Hoc TSC Nomination Committee (GOM 09.01.01)

Q2 - 11 am to 12:30 pm

TSC Review and Planning

1. (May) Review TSC Communications Plan - how are we doing against it?
2. Standardization of Processes Across WGs
3. Tooling Strategy
4. Standard Use of Tools

Q3 - 1:30 pm to 3 pm

1. Review Open Issues List
2. Top priority items from the Strategic Priorities Survey - Wayne
   • How can HL7 increase its value to members, employers, and other organizations to strategically grow our membership?
   • How can HL7 maintain its leadership role in shaping, maintaining, and processing standards in the future?
   • How does HL7 create and practice a culture of trust and transparency? (if we have time)
3. Definition of Substantivity - Tony
4. Revise Process to Withdraw Protocol Specifications
5. PLA Progress Update - Calvin

Q4 - 3:30 pm to 5pm

1. Standards Governance Board topics - Paul
2. Good Implementation Practices - Wayne, Lorraine
3. ONC Conformance Testing Project - Dave

Sunday evening Agenda Topics

1. ArB
2. BAM
3. FHIR
4. Report on HQ change from DSTU to STU - Lynn

Wednesday lunch

1. Review 4-year projects

Minutes/Conclusions Reached:

• Called to order at 9:04 AM
• Ken explains the awards on badges. Anne emailed out the descriptions.
• Meeting minutes accepted via general consent
• Ken welcomes Wayne and individuals introduce themselves
• Agenda changes reviewed
• CTO Goals
  • Wayne states it’s slightly premature to discuss, but goes over focus areas/themes. Five themes:
    • Vision Theme: The technical vision for how to pull together V2, V3, and FHIR (and everything else); need a common approach. Lorraine mentions the SAIF Framework.
    • Navigation Theme: Wayne notes there are so many WGs and board committees and other groups that it is hard to navigate the structure of the organization. John and Calvin describe the evolution of the current structure. Discussion over creating new WGs vs. creating projects under existing WGs. Wayne mentions the danger of fragmentation.
    • Simplification Theme: Simplifying the product portfolio. Discussion over V3 usage in the US vs. other countries; not heavily used in US but used heavily in other countries, including Canada. Jean notes that development of V3 has dwindled. Lorraine notes that CDA is V3 which is heavily used in the US. Calvin: We did a risk assessment across all committees, and the risks have stayed with us. The depth of technical expertise, the volunteer bandwidth, the lack of volunteerism in the support services division.
    • Process Theme: Wayne notes that people don’t show up at calls and waste others’ time. Giorgio mentions multiple categories of tooling. Inventory project should address this. If we’re going to achieve the HL7 vision, we need better tools. Should look at wiki and tracker use, using VOIP rather than conference calls, etc. Collaboration tools like Zulip are really helpful. Lorraine notes a past project that was looking for online collaboration tools. We need to make it as easy as possible for people to work and not waste time. FHIR a good example; Wayne is helping Grahame move things along and bring it into the mainstream as much as possible. It has brought a lot of interest to the organization and has forced some beneficial process changes. Lorraine notes that it requires balance. Russ notes an example of the harmonization meeting – the GTM link is within a zip file and needs to be more readily available.
    • Biopharma: Wayne has been working to re-engage the biopharma community.
• Multi-Year planning:
  • Ken introduces the topic.
    • The goal of simplification should apply here as well. Discussion over location of meeting notifications, minutes, agendas, and other documentation; there are too many locations and methods being used. Once we’ve agreed on the preferred location and method we should expect pushback. Whatever we decide it needs to be usable by all. Also want to focus on process simplification. Melva and Jean volunteer to work on the project. Calvin: We could be dictatorial or we could use a WG Health model of rewards. Calvin suggests integrating it into WG Health. Wayne: we need to be very clear in the standard way to do things. Discussion over how to handle two WGs that are out of compliance. Previously they were invited to TSC lunch but Ken is not in favor of that. He has reached out to them personally, and yet there are still issues. Question if they’re really a WG at this point. Perhaps they change to user group or project.
    • Structure: Need to look at our current structure. Evaluate WGs not meeting WG Health. John mentions having stronger steering division definitions. Melva suggests evaluating WGs that perhaps shouldn’t be WGs. Melva, John, and Russ volunteer to work on Structure.
    • Management of engagement of members, non-members, and user groups: For example, T3SD is co-chair rich with not enough volunteer engagement. DESD is member-rich and co-chair poor. Calvin mentions the SAIF analysis on interoperability. Provides a systematic way of looking at ourselves. Jean: Implementers have a hard time coming to HL7 for engagement because we are focused on standards development. John: Should also look at engagement of non-members so that they become members. Implementers and users have traditionally not gotten a lot out of HL7. Calvin: In structured docs, there had been a focus on turning out the standard but it is evolving. Wayne: we need to reach out to and engage the whole constituency. Difficulty in corralling implementers to assist with the development work. Lorraine notes nutrition people as a positive result of achieving the goal of having implementers assimilate into the organization. Ken adds engaging non-members. Melva adds engaging user groups. John, Lorraine, Russ volunteer to work on this topic. Anne volunteers to assist.
    • Standards – Structure of Product Sharing and Regulatory Requirements and Realm issues: Ken has been working with Tamara, Laura, and Anne to reorganize. Some items are hitting people’s government regulations; they call it the implementations standard; then they supersede it with something else but the old standard is still a regulation. Need to do a better job defining what the current version is and what version is superseded. Need to show a level of hierarchy. Want the TSC to look at this strategy. Jean: We can only make it so easy. Ken: Yes, we shouldn’t let perfection get in the way of success. John: there’s a difference between the way we view our standards and they way our customers view them. Ken mentions implementation guides and the relationships to the standards. John: we need to get the difference between a message and a document straightened out. John volunteers to work on this issue.

Giorgio mentions realms outside of US. Other realms handle it within their affiliates. Wayne states we should still be able to find it if we can. Discussion over language barriers presented by materials from different countries. Need support for multi-language FHIR, etc. Discussion over need for registry/repositories. Melva notes that there was a Board project called Share that encouraged affiliates to share some of the standards and other work. There was a place to upload. Jean notes that there is little motivation to share. Lorraine notes we need clarity on our rules regarding sharing IP. Jean and Giorgioi volunteer to work on these issues. Also need to look at DMP, SWOT, M&C, and project review.

Q2:

• Ad Hoc TSC Nomination Committee:
  • Andy, Paul, Gora, and Melva have terms expiring. John, Calvin, Russ, and Sandy will serve as the TSC nominating committee. They will recruit additional people to run. No term limits on TSC so all can run again.
• Standardization of processes across WGs:
  • WGs doing everything differently. Agendas are supposed to be out 48 hours in advance, for example, according to the co-chair handbook. How do we improve this process? Ken suggests co-chairs go through training every two years. Wayne is an advocate of checklists of essential tasks. Helps to focus on key priorities. John suggests recognizing different WGs have different needs. Jean: We may be forcing WGs for a stated goal that never happens. Melva: Have to respect international participants’ schedules. We have a co-chair call in advance of the Monday call. Most people attend because they’re invited. Russ: Agendas should all have the same template. Ken: should we go to PIC and have them do an appendix to the handbook where checklists for WGMs, conference calls, etc. Melva: we also need to advertise the co-chair presentation. Lorraine: We have too many copies of things in too many different places. These are useful changes to consider but we have to be mindful of how much change we ask for at one time. Change is difficult when people are already stretched thin. Ken notes that a whole bunch of things on the TSC Wiki are going to be moved out to the resource page on HL7.org and we’re going to downsize the wiki. Ken summarizes that we shouldn’t have people go through re-training although we need to remind new co-chairs to attend. Also would be good to have a webinar to update skills. Melva: there should be expectations that co-chairs take part in the administrivia. Russ mentions setting “team rules.” Ken summarizes that we’ll put a webinar together and encourage people to attend. Will take Karen’s slides to see if they can be retrofitted. Sandy, Melva, Ken, Tony, and Anne will work together. Melva believes there may be a new cochair webinar already and will check.
• Open issues
  • Member benefit from IP: move to September due date
  • Review projects open >5 years – Lorraine: would be good to get Dave’s instructions into checklist form. Discussion over complexity of PSS. Melva notes people don’t use the form with the instructions. Lorraine states that it needs to be a web form. One problem is emailing documents around. Tony: why do we have to have documents floating around when we have project insight? Discussion over inadequacy of that tool. Jira will be test-driven by FHIR and may help solve this project. Jean: we’re trying to make the PSS handle all of our projects they are too different to be managed by one form. Web form would solve it. Calvin: we’re looking at a tool, not a global architecture. Need to be careful. If we start layering this we’re going to cause too much disruption. Bad idea at this point. Ken: one problem is managing the editing process and version control of PSSes. Wayne notes documents are difficult. Melva notes that most cochairs don’t use Project Insight. Ken suggests we need to expand the license.
  • Strategy for PSS management throughout the lifecycle and clearly communicating the most current document: Jean, Calvin, and Dave will work on this strategy. Calvin: it needs to be a strategic activity rather than tactical. Requirements need to be simplified and clarified. Lorraine: getting EST involved in this process will be important.
  • Project 9341 on endorsements: no clear decision from EC although there is a disinclination to endorse. Agreement to endorse if it makes sense, but no clear definition of what that scenario would look like. John mentions OASIS wants endorsement on a different standard and they are waiting in the wings. They want us to endorse it because we aren’t in that space. Ken doesn’t think that’s a good practice. Melva mentions another instance where someone wanted us to endorse an IG; we balloted but then couldn’t make changes based on comments because it wasn’t our document. Wayne notes these should be submitted as part of a process. Group discusses the problem with making exceptions; would be easier say we are or are not going to endorse. Not sure how that would look for HL7. Jean: the problem of endorsing is that our feedback doesn’t get incorporated. If we ballot it our feedback should be incorporated. Calvin: We can build a standard, but not a solution – we need to figure out if we have a cooperative arrangement with solution builders, and we may lose that opportunity if we say we absolutely never endorse. Lorraine: What is the goal? John: PHER believed they needed to ballot the OASIS standard and they were willing to make the changes; if they didn’t we wouldn’t endorse.
    • ACTION: Wayne will discuss with EC. Potential principles: 1) We have organization to organization agreement; 2) We could endorse the use of HL7 standards and 3) We endorse something that is not ours but has gone through our process. Ken: We have statements of understanding with people who come to support HL7. OASIS is not doing that. They’re saying their product is out there and will we endorse it. They made up their own messages. They could have come here, done an SOU, and worked within our process. We don’t know that it’s a good product. If someone wants an endorsement, the way the solve that problem is by coming here, creating an IG and if we approve it, by default we endorse it. Wayne: so to clarify, we don’t endorse anyone else’s stuff. Clarification of principles above: 1) We can endorse organizational agreements approved by the board; 2) we can endorse the use of HL7 products. We don’t endorse other people’s products in the absence of an HL7 product. Calvin states we should be able to give a path forward to organizations coming forward to seek endorsement. Lorraine: it’s almost like bringing a new product family into our organization. Russ: How would this apply to relationships with organizations like OMG? Answer: that was the SOU process. Ken does a straw poll; group agrees that Wayne will present 1 and 2 as the principles to the EC. All in favor, although John Roberts expresses that he would prefer that he include the option to endorse other people’s products in the absence of an HL7 product. Wayne suggests that they could produce an IG and solve the problem.

Q3:

• Last open issue was a pastoral care messaging PSS. US Realm thought it should be International in scope and Hans stated he would look at securing that and report back. Group suggests bringing it forth at the International Council and adding an International person on the PSS. Ken agrees to do so.
• Tooling Strategy:
  • Wayne reports that the strategy has been presented at the TSC. The TSC asked the Board to carry forward previous tooling budget into 2016. In 2014 there was a cut in budget. If there is a need to invest, Wayne believes there would be an increase in budget. Lorraine wonders what the board’s roadmap and strategy is? Wayne: the question is what the key strategies are and the EST strategy was vague. What problems are we trying to solve? Lorraine: Registries (interoperable with other registries such as profile registries), modern collaborative communication platform environment, sustainable platform around archiving and backup, management process for project and document management, single points of failure for publishing risks, FHIR functionality. Need to modernize with authentication across our systems. Ken mentions cross-affiliate authentication. Need to integrate applications. Wayne: what do we need from the strategy? Types of tools (collaboration), things that support standards development, product line management/issue management on current products, user/implementer issues, infrastructure, architecture, interoperable tools. Giorgio: Does this support extend to international? Wayne feels that we need to encompass the international landscape. Giorgio describes the barriers to that. Lorraine: are we providing access to all of the localizations? Wayne: the architecture should make it possible. The question is if there is a platform that encompasses our needs. Discussion over previous search for balloting tool. We also need to consider member services and educational tools. Identity management/ management is different amongst the website, the wiki, etc. We’ll have an inventory before next WGM, and then we can determine where we need to be and do a gap assessment.
  • Straw poll of biggest pain points:
    • John: HL7 should insist of interoperability between tools.
    • Calvin: 1) Interopability, 2) Publishing risks
    • Giorgio: 1) Interoperability, 2) Standards development, 3) Application integrations
    • Jean: 1) Framework, 2) Interoperability, 3) Modern collaborative tooling
    • Sandy: 1) Publishing risk, 2) Interoperability
    • Katherine Duteau: Interoperability
    • Tony: 1) Publishing risks, 2) Interoperability
    • Lorraine: 1) Publishing Risks, 2) Framework, and 3) Modern collaborative tooling
    • Melva: 1) Publishing risks, 2) Modern collaborative tooling, 3) Standards development
      • ACTION: Make Q1 and ¾ of Q2 agenda for September to start doing tooling prioritization after reviewing the tooling inventory (Lorraine will bring the inventory forward), followed by gap analysis.
• Dave Hammil arrives
• Priority Items from the Strategic Priorities Survey
  • How can HL7 increase its value to members, employers, and other organizations to strategically grow our membership?
    • If we can reach out to a broader community, that would give broader participation and acceptance. Look outside rather than just inward. Jean: if we reach out to these groups we’ll be changing our organization. Wayne notes heavy participation in Connectathon, etc. Jean says yes, but that’s not changing the focus of the organization to include implementers. There should be an implementer voice but that’s different than growing our membership by adding implementers. Discussion over the fact that the groups would be parallel vs. combined. Melva notes that membership is now an ad hoc committee; does the EC see it as a priority since they disbanded the membership committee? Wayne suspects it will come back as this ramps up.
  • How can HL7 maintain its leadership role in shaping, maintaining, and processing standards in the future?
    • What is our role? We should carve our role out more clearly.
  • How does HL7 create and practice a culture of trust and transparency? (if we have time)
    • Transparency is a guiding principle; trust is harder to achieve. Ken: transparency is difficult to achieve when WGs are scoring red on WG health. Need simplification for effective transparency. Lorraine: challenge between the headspace of getting things done vs. knowing who and where to report things. Technical people aren’t that good at remembering to communicate. Most people wish to be transparent but fail when they’re in the weeds and moving fast. Ongoing culture and education issue.
• Definition of Substantivity
  • Tony reports that it is being worked on as rapidly as possible. Getting a canonical definition is difficult. Lorraine: more participation in ARB is causing us to take a longer time to come to consensus. Ken asks if we’ll be ready by September? Tony affirms that’s the hope. Discussion over differences for different standards and how to manage. Jean suggests that if you think it’s substantive it is, and if you don’t you should ask to make sure. Group likes that idea.
• PLA progress updates
  • Calvin describes the work that’s been done on the proposed CDA product family. Product family is the product; the product line is things related to the product. Methodology question is outstanding; not sure who will be responsible at this point. May include elements from Structured Docs, Templates, MnM, Vocab, and Conformance. Extended discussion over how it might work. Melva provides scenario from Pharmacy. CDA Family vision is to have separation between governance, management, and methodology. Differences in methodology approaches will have to be resolved. Review of the proposed model – one CDA family including base standard, templates and IGs, FHIR profiling for clinical documents, and CDA tooling including template tooling.
• SGB – have moved forward with some of the group development documents such as DMP, M&C. Short meeting tomorrow afternoon. Joint meeting with ARB to look at product director issue.
• Conformance testing with Dave and Karen:
  • Dave describes recent developments and linked to the full initial report to the ONC on the wiki page. Page 3 contains the list of IGs covered by the project. Report due in September needs to lay out what we can do over the next three years. One decision point for the 19 without tooling will be if we want to go back and develop tooling, or do we create conformance statements and tooling for IGs going forward? Ken asks if they have conformance statements? All of the CDAs should have statements that are processable. Karen states a guidance document will be developed for the WGs to do this work with consistency. Which groups should be involved to develop these statements, and if we farm out, how long would it take and how much would it cost? Calvin states it should go into one of the structured docs quarters with the list of the IGs. Karen: is there a community of people within HL7 who know how to do this? If not, we need to recruit and train. Will they be balloted along with the normative standard? Structured Docs/Templates should perhaps lead. Each product should be evaluated to see if there are conformance statements, are there processables; documenting and validating that conformance tools are available or if they were left out due to time constraints, etc. Need to be able to extract schematrons. There are some V2 and V3 IGs on the list as well. V2: There are conformance statements in the message structure, the segments, and the fields. They are not extractable. Need to document how it should be managed henceforth so they are tagged and extractable. Tony: it should be identified in the style guide. Steps: Define conformance parameters; determine how to manage extracting from IG; determining how to extract; build conformance model. Need to be machine extractable. In V2, some conformance is so embedded that it doesn’t lift out as a conformance statement. Wayne: First we have to develop the policy. Policies will be different documents for different families. How long will it take to develop those and how much will it cost? Scope of IGs includes universal and US. Big questions: how long will it take to determine what needs to be done and how much will it cost? Wayne: can we just figure out how to do it for the future and stop worrying about moving backwards? Karen: yes, that is definitely an option. Karen covers other tasks such as developing certification program, developing a tooling catalog, etc. Where would those tasks come in; who would we contract to do the work? Who should we go to for Version 2? CGIT would be the group. V3? Methodology for V3 is MnM. Karen/Dave will go to the separate groups to talk to them about guidelines for machine processable conformance statements and report back to the TSC. Will need to know how long it will take to sort out the methodology pieces. Suggestion for following test case dates: all new IGs must have machine processable conformance statements; build methodology by September 2017; use in Jan 2019 ballot period. Will be easier to implement in CDA and FHIR; more difficult for V2 and V3. Phased implementation based on product line. Wayne would prefer having different schedules for different families. Should have families come back with an impact assessment dates. Karen and Dave will visit the groups over the next month and ask them to come up with an estimate by a certain date. Tony and Lorraine will sit down with Dave and Karen to put together a bullet list of asks for the WGs. Then Karen/Dave will ask WGs to give responses by the end of June to determine how long they’ll need to develop a timeline. Calvin suggests looking and what FHIR and CDA are doing with conformance to determine if those methods can be dropped into the other standards. Tony mentions the messaging workbench as a potential tool.
• Move revise process to withdraw protocol specifications to tomorrow (Sunday), as well as good implementation practices.
• Adjourned at 4:50 pm Eastern

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