Item 1
Field problem reporting process
Objective.
Defining the reporting process of the IHE profile implementation in a site, hospitals, healthcare organizations or in the concept of a national EHR project. The objectives are
- to establish a current list of problems that users or vendors met when the profiles are installed and deployed in actual use;
- to know best practices ;
- to check the differences between the workflow described and the real workflow in the healthcare organizations ;
- to establish a cartography of the implementations
- to define indicators of the quality of IHE implementation ;
- to allow users to provide feedback on record of issues in a way that encourages user/vendor cooperation in resolution of issues.
The purpose here is not to provide a free IHE “consultation” process on resolving users connectivity issues, nor it is a way for users to register “public complaints” about a vendor IHE’s implementations. It is critical to avoid these pitfalls.
Analysis.
Actually IHE-EUR has no formal feedback process about IHE implementations in Europe. In some countries, users have identified some issues, but as there is no IHE managed tracking therefore IHE Technical Committees does not solve them. For example, some users may decide not to implement a specific IHE profile because there are differences with their current business processes or if they implement it, a vendor may propose new transactions which are not listed in the IHE profile. Even if vendors participated to the connect-a-thon, there are sometimes misfits related to the IHE specifications when the products are implemented and actually used.
The proposal to offer and encourage reports from the sites implementing, is to improve all the IHE process by knowing the result of the development and to close the loop. We always stop the process at the demonstration level and it is not sufficient. The evaluation of the installation is a part of the process.
The challenges of this proposed action is to organize a reporting process which provides benefits to the users (why would they spend time to write a report) and vendors (do they need this feedback to improve their credibility or the credibility of IHE in the marketplace). This reporting process should be balanced and fair so that vendor or site specific issues are not made public in an identifiable manner, unless validated and agreed by the impacted parties.
Results.
This IHE WG has to define a report which describes the reporting and evaluation process. Define the form to be filled (see the presentation done by Cor.) Indicators derived from reported input.
The report must be filled by users with the help of vendors. The description of the evaluation process will also help the users to understand all the IHE process (some kind of education). The report must be as simple as possible and easy to fill. It needs to be written in the users’ language. The distribution of the reports (or summary reports) must be done by vendors or by the national initiative. It could accompanied all others useful documents. The results must be collected by the national IHE initiative (a process and a point of contact will need to be established) and the results must be consolidated at IHE-Europe level for producing recommendations for updating profiles or test plan.
Deliverables :
- Template of a report (in English)
- Indicators for evaluating the process at the IHE-EUR.
- Template for publication of the results
- Process for taking into account the feedback to the whole IHE process
Roadblocks.
To identify the benefits for each party (user or vendor) in being the source of reports and is interested in the results and corrective actions.
This reporting process could be specific to IHE-Europe and its member national IHE initiatives or extended to IHE-International. The recommendations will be used by the technical committees and the connect-a-thon’s project leaders.
Work breakdown: Actions and organization and timing
Resources needs : To write documents and to report when meeting with the WG : 1man x month
Timing : 6 months delay
Working group : user and vendor representatives (6 members)
Dependency : with MARCOM committee for the description of the evaluation process. This description can also be used for education. No other dependency.