Col Perks's blog

A prominent phrase that we hear in interoperability is that of Semantic Interoperability. It is gathering credence in the guise of the semantic web and it is certainly opt quoted in relation to health IT and health standardisations. And why wouldn't it; complex information concepts, a wide variety of solution providers and system architectures, much toted benefits. But what is it? And is it true? See http://wildfauve.blogspot.com/2010/03/semantic-interoperability.html for a veiw on the idea of semantic interoperability in health.

Over-the-coffee-cup conversations that attempt to solve all the worlds problems (or at least the ones worth solving) are not uncommon.   Recently the theme of the centralised EHR has resulted in much caffeine intake.  A number of us have worked on large centralised EHRs and almost universally the feeling is one of "I wouldn't do it that way again".  Very few jurisdictions can afford to spend significantly on EHR programs and centralisation is a significant driver to cost bloat.  Furthermore, practical experience shows that centralisation drives complexity, and leads to less that successful implementations.  I've started to capture some of the ideas on other approaches in my blog (at http://wildfauve.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-centralised-ehr.html).  Grab a coffee and join the discussion. 

I’ve only been wondering around the health IT space for a few years.  Like almost everyone on the planet I’ve spent a bit of time on the UK national program.  With that experience I wonder whether the current direction of travel in health IT isn’t a little bit of a rat-hole.