Convergence Workshop, 20-21 March 2013

The goals and expected outputs of the convergence initiative

Dipak KalraEuroRec

Convergence Workshop, 20-21 March 2013

The principal driver for the convergence initiative is .....

Convergence Workshop, 20-21 March 2013

Tendency to reinvent wheels

• WE INVENT VERY SIMILAR ENABLERS– information models, clinical models, message models– ontologies, term lists, mappings and translations– tools of various kinds– service architectures

• WE STUMBLE OVER VERY SIMILAR DISABLERS– privacy protection, governance, data access, data sharing– information security– data quality

• WE OVERLOOK VERY SIMILAR OPPORTUNITIES– alignment of evaluation metrics– synergy of business models to ensure sustainability

Convergence Workshop, 20-21 March 2013

and soon after a project is over......

Convergence Workshop, 20-21 March 2013

Now is the opportunity to collaborate, converge, sustain

• Pool cross-project expertise• Agree on common functional components

– work from the same terrain map of the ICT landscape– share details about what you are working on

• models, tools, repositories, services, clinical knowledge content, rules, queries...

• Share requirements and specifications for these• Adopt the same standards - indeed, adopt standards!• Agree to use each other’s outputs• Welcome solutions that are “not invented here” !!

• Agree not to develop something...• Divide and conquer large and complex problems together• Build sustainable solutions

Convergence Workshop, 20-21 March 2013

Some balances have to be found...

• forcing a single approach V supporting multiple experimental pathways

• specific solutions V generic solutions• quick fixes V durable solutions• rapid prototyping V robust versus co-ordinated development• the cost of implementing for yourself V the cost of

implementing for our community• investing in doing V investing in learning• basic functional testing V quality assured software• the effort of deploying locally V supporting our community• competition V co-operation... V... co-opetition

Convergence Workshop, 20-21 March 2013

The breakout groups are your opportunity to:

• SHARE (briefly!)• the focus of your project, relevant to your breakout topic• the challenges/bottlenecks you experience within your project

– the problems

• the approach your project has taken to these challenges – the solutions you are working on, or have ready to share

• what you would wish to share, learn from and to converge on with other projects and experts

• No “death by PowerPoint” ! 

• AGREE ACTIONS• Specific contacts, mutual learning, collective learning• Common problems to be tackled together - roadmaps

Convergence Workshop, 20-21 March 2013

Breakout:Semantic interoperability

and metadata

Topic lead: Dipak Kalra

Convergence Workshop, 20-21 March 2013

Scope of this topic

• Semantic Interoperability• consistent representation of clinical information needed to support

safe shared care and patient centred care – e.g. emergency care summaries, chronic disease management,

wellness...

• consistent usage of terms and data structures that are frequently needed for research, aligned with those used in clinical care

• methods and tools to harmonise heterogeneous representations

• Metadata• common models and descriptors supporting the wide scale

understanding of research data sets so that they are correctly (re-)used by others sharing access to such data

• harmonisation between disease registry, population health, cohort study and EHR metadata

Convergence Workshop, 20-21 March 2013

Contributing projects and organisations

• EuroRec

• p-medicine

• SALUS

• SemanticHealthNet

• EHR4CR

• Mobility Motivator

• eHGI

• epSOS

• BioVacSafe

• Joinup

• EFIR

• INTEGRATE

• EURECA

• TRANSFoRm

• eTRIKS

• Antilope

• Granatum

• SUSTAINS

• Momentum

• RenewingHealth

• PARENT

• ISA

• CEN, ISO, HL7

• Industry...

• European Commission

Convergence Workshop, 20-21 March 2013

Candidate solutions to collaborate on

• A shared library of common EHR information patterns (clinical models with multiple terminology bindings)

• Experiences of optimal fit (for different purposes) between Information models, clinical models, terminology

• The sensible scaling of post-coordination• Experiences of setting up and using terminology services (e.g. CTS2)• Solutions for the harmonised interpretation of heterogeneous data

sources• Distributed querying of federated data sources• Good design practice, and the reuse of each other’s ontology

resources• Shared metadata for documenting the research context and data

quality of EHR and clinical study data (and perhaps registries)• And many others ...