HCLSIG/PharmaOntology/Meetings/2010-04-01 Conference Call

Conference Details

* Date of Call: Thursday April 1 2010 
* Time of Call: 12:00pm - 1:00pm ET 
* Dial-In #: +1.617.761.6200 (Cambridge, MA) 
* Dial-In #: +33.4.89.06.34.99 (Nice, France) 
* Dial-In #: +44.117.370.6152 (Bristol, UK) 
* Participant Access Code: 42572 ("HCLS2") 
* IRC Channel: irc.w3.org port 6665 channel #HCLS2 (see W3C IRC page for details, or see Web IRC) 
* Mibbit quick start: Click on mibbit for instant IRC access
* Duration: 1h 
* Convener: Susie

Agenda

* VA VistA: a real EHR on the Semantic Web - Conor Dowling - Presentation
* TMO 
 - Data - Michel 
 - Ontology - Elgar, Colin 
 - Interface - Bosse 
 - eMerge/ IO Informatics - Chris, Bosse, Elgar
 - Outreach (BioOntologies, NRDD, IHI - Michel, Colin, Chris 
* Drug Ontology Update - Susie
* Inclusion/Exclusion Criterion - Michel, Bosse 
* Other Outreach 
 - UPenn Translational Medicine (ITMIT) - Chris 
 - Upcoming F2F - Susie
* AOB

Minutes

Attendees: Chris, Michel, Shankar, EricM, Trish, Bosse, Scott, David, Matthias, Susie

Apologies: Julia, Elgar

<Susie> Conor presents on Vista

<Susie> Vista is very scalable

<Susie> Used widely in the US

<Susie> Also used in Finland

<Susie> Biggest deployed eHR in the US

<Susie> Kaisers system is big, but not as integrated

<Susie> Used over 200 systems

<Susie> They federate, so can look at records across locations

<Susie> Most are build on RDB with custom code, HL7, some terminology

<Susie> Vista has lots of VA specific terminology

<Susie> Vista has linkage to lab systems, radiology, etc

<Susie> Vista has lots of HL7 systems

<Susie> You wouldn't see this in most open source systems

<Susie> And Vista is free

<Susie> Arbitary release progress which isn't great

<Susie> Don't have much transparency as to what is coming

<Susie> They don't need to help you to understand it

<Susie> It's a fat client in Delphia

<Susie> It's showing its age

<Susie> FileMan is the core store

<Susie> But it isn't relational

<Susie> Dates back to the 70s

<Susie> It doesn't have a remote query capability like SQL

<Susie> But do have SQL like extensions

<Susie> Have 5K RPC calls

<Susie> Neither query application is ideal

<Susie> Provides opportunities for semweb

<Susie> Fileman would likely be called graphman today

<Susie> They have lots of nodes which can be literal values or pointers

<Susie> There are key nodes, e.g. patients

<Susie> And sub nodes such as problems, vitals, allergies, etc

<Susie> It's just a directed graph

<Susie> It's really strongly typed

<Susie> Down to the pointer level

<Susie> If map to OWL, will get a very detailed schema that you can extrapolate from

<Susie> Has extras like similie project at MIT

<Susie> Has concept of internal and external forms

<Susie> Can walk through system using linked data

<Susie> Want to preserve this as converting system to semweb

<Susie> They think about XML/SOAP/SOA for connectors

<Susie> That's the same with CDISC, and other pharma companies

<Susie> Need to put the terminology into their terms

<Susie> So call SPARQL a fileman query, etc.

<Susie> You don't need to tell them its sparql

<Susie> First release is focused on linked data

<Susie> Use stepping stones

<Susie> Let them walk through all data in vista

<Susie> Need to select all

<Susie> Need to describe a node - all predicates

<Susie> Need to see all nodes that refer to the patient

<Susie> Then display this in a web page

<Susie> Let them download what we have

<Susie> Make it clear that it isn't a smoke and mirrors demo

<Susie> So utility then terminology

<Susie> Christopher Jones is the sample patient

<Susie> Get all information that describes him

<Susie> Show that you can remove extraneous data

<Susie> When proposed in Jan

<Susie> A number of people didn't like the idea of going directly to fileman

<Susie> Concerned that he'd miss important information that is in the business logic

<Susie> RPC calls are very similar

<Susie> Just need a filter

<Susie> Business logic is usally re-formatting, and some filtering

<Susie> So they shouldn't be concerned about going to a relational store

<Susie> Have their own code sets equivalent to snomed

<Susie> 2 gaps - going through general ontology to va ontology

<Susie> Need to go through va code sets, and the ones we want to use in general

<Susie> Big payoff with semweb is there isn't a whole bunch of middleware

<Susie> Link one schema hopefully using equivalence to another, and one code set to another, then you can query it

<Susie> So can go from vista system to more general one

<Susie> Minimizes amount of mapping code

<Susie> Take va terminology into separate system and map to world in general

<Susie> Would then query the separate system that maps to va

<Susie> Think this is the optimal way to go

<Susie> Va gives its drug files to RxNORM

<Susie> And the connections are included

<Susie> Haven't done anything with the schema gap

<Susie> Want to talk about the optimal schema to map va to

<Susie> How can we connect our demos together

<Susie> Can we use TMO

<Susie> VistA is free

<Susie> The VistA world, clinical world, physicians need to be educated about Linked Data

<Susie> Need to show them things in their terms

<Susie> Like to see how our demos can connect to others

<Susie> Caregraf is a start up

<Susie> Want to sell solutions that fill healthcare gaps that arise from healthcare reform

<Susie> Focus on using semweb soluations

<Susie> Next year will be big roll of eHR to smaller practices

<Susie> Not publicly selling anything yet

<Susie> Trying to promote technologies on the web site

<Susie> Chris: How do you deal with confidentiality in the demo

<Susie> The VA system ships without data

<Susie> Medsphere have created some pretend patients

<Susie> We did a version of SPARUL to load data

<Susie> These are semi-realistic clinical scenarios

<Susie> A web server would provide security

<Susie> Chris: Does it make patient care better?

<Susie> Once we have linked data for everything

<Susie> We can begin to show how we can make things better for physicians who are treating patients

<Susie> The closet think so far is wha't under the patient record for Christopher Jones

<dbooth> Thank you Conor! Excellent presentation! Sorry I need to drop off.

<Susie> Need good example data

<Susie> And would need to fill in lots of people to demonstrate scalability

<Susie> Do we focus on filters on server side

<Susie> Or make sure you can put a whole graph for a patient into the system

<Susie> Identify disease, make better prognostics, or make better decisions regarding drug disc/dev

<Susie> Have been working on interface with Eric Miller

<Susie> And have created a flow diagram

<Susie> But have also spoken to Marshfield Clinic about gaining access to data

<Susie> CDISC very focused on XML standards

<Susie> Are getting support and funding from FDA