Evaluation of Published Profiles
Each Domain Planning Committee should plan to evaluate published profiles after a number of years to consider if they should be retired/deprecated.
The decision to retire/deprecate a profile should not be made hastily, given the work that goes into creating a profile and the fact that it can take some time for the market to become aware of, understand and start making use of a profile.
If it becomes apparent; however, that a profile does not address a valid problem or that the mechanism used is impractical, IHE may consider retiring/deprecating or significantly revising the profile.
The proposed Profile Evaluation Form tries to provide a structured way to step through the following questions/steps:
- Has the Profile been adopted? If yes, why review it? If no, continue
- Did we address a real problem? If yes, continue. If no, we have a problem.
- Is the business case valid? If yes, continue. If no, we have a problem.
- Is the technical solution valid? If yes, continue. If no, consider a re-write.
- Is there a better technical solution?
- Do we need to keep it around for some legacy reason?
In general:
- If the profile is Adopted and Valid, great.
- If the profile is Unadopted and Valid, consider more marketing and wait.
- If the profile is Unadopted and Invalid, consider retirement/deprecation/revision.
- If the profile is Adopted and Invalid, hmmm, what now? Fix? Deprecate?
The Integration Statement Registry will be an extremely useful tool for tracking the adoption of profiles. Over time, we should get a good feel for the pattern of adoption, when a profile is deviating from the pattern and what the possible cause may be.
See Also
Charge Posting Evaluation - The Radiology Planning Committee is trying out the form on the Charge Posting Profile.