Healthcare Services Specification Project (HSSP)
HL7 SOA WG Conference Minutes
Kyoto: May 10-15, 2009
Committee Agenda:
Day / Qtr / NotesMonday / Q1 / (not meeting)
Q2 / PASS - overview, discussion (SOA only, not joint)
Q3 / Worksession -- Refresh of Service Functional Model and Service Specification Framework
Q4 / Joint meeting with Patient Administration (PA hosting - confirmed)
Tuesday / Q1 / ARB-related issues
Q2 / Worksession -- Continued work on SFM/SSF (or follow-up from ARB if needed)
Q3 / Joint with PHER (PHER hosting - confirmed)
Joint session with IHE
Q4 / [Not meeting]
Wednesday / Q1 / Entity Identification Service (EIS) Ballot Reconciliation
Q2 / Joint with Security (SOA hosting - confirmed)
Q3 / Joint Session for all Foundations Steering Division Committees joint discussion on SAEAF
(FrameworkSD hosting - confirmed)
Q4 / Joint Session (continued)
Thursday / Q1 / Joint with INM / MnM / SOA / OO (INM hosting - confirmed)
Q2 / Update on Human Services Directory (HSD) Project; Related developments
"Hot Topics" -- To address emerging priorities identified during the week
Q3 / "Hot Topics" -- To address emerging priorities identified during the week
Q4 / CTS-2 - overview, discussion, ballot reconcilliation (SOA only, not joint)
Friday / Q1 / Not meeting
MON / TUE / WED / THU
Name / E-Mail / Organization / Q2 / Q3 / Q4 / Q1 / Q2 / Q3 / Q4 / Q1 / Q2 / Q3 / Q4 / Q1 / Q2 / Q3 / Q4
Afzal, Muhammad / HL7 Pakistan / X / X
Blobel, Bernd / / HL7 Germany / X / X
Bond, Andy / / NeHTA / X / X / X
Barelds, Roel / / X
Bourquard, Karima / / X / X
Davis, Julia / HL7 Australia / X
De Leon, Alex / / KP / X
Del Prete, Doug / / IBM / X
Fallas, David / / Sysmex / X / X / X
Forquet, Lori / / X / X
Grieve, Grahame / Kestral / X
Hasegawa, Hideshige / / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
Hegsh, Beat / / X / X / X / x
Hidenori, Shinoda / / JAHIS / X / X / X / X
Hirai, Masaaki / / X / X
Hordijk, Yvonne Prjnaker / / X
Kim, Ilkon / / KNU, Korea / X / X / X / X / X / x / X / X / X
Landgrebe, Jobst / Booz & Co. / X
Lario, Robert / / Visum Point / X / X
McCauley, Vincent / / HL7 Australia / X / X / X / X / X / x
Miyohama, Hideyaki / HL7 Japan / x
Nakashima, Takashi / / X / X / X / X
Obayashi, Masaharu / / Kanrikogaku Ltd / X / X / X` / X
Passorino, Alessandra / X
Rowed, David / HL7 Australia / X
Rubin, Ken / / EDS / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
Sergent, Peter / / X
Simon, Oliver / / X
Soley, Richard / OMG / X
Stuart, Sandy / Kaiser Permanente / X / X / X
Walker, Max / / Victoria Dept of Human Svcs / X / X
Zimmerman, Jay / / X
Notes from Monday Q2: Joint with Security (informal)
Bernd indicated that the principals of the work were unable to attend so this is a broad overview
Currently discussing use cases within the Audit/Access Control SFMs
Scenarios based on traditional caresettings, less focused on distributed examples. Two different activities resulting from those use case descriptions
Significant part of SFMs are use-case based
Audit service ballot expected in September
Access Control expected in January 2010
Bernd showed the current access control document and model.
Action Item: Bernd to close-loop with Gila any areas of concern about SFM or guidance areas that are needed;
Action Item: Security TC was requested to collect any SFM concerns they have (and lessons-learned) so that SOA can incorporate that feedback as we undertake the refresh of the boilerplate and methodology
Ken asked for examples of problems with the SFM or the process. Max gave an example of “Profiles”, that having a template example would be useful.
Monday Q3:
Traditional welcome, introductions, and overview of HSSP, process, wiki
Conducted walkthrough of SFM to familiarize the attendees with the document and its structure
Began refresh of the Service Functional Model. Discussion remained at a high, conceptual level as most of the attendees were fairly new to HSSP and SOA WG and felt uncomfortable getting into the details of the update without more context and understanding.
Monday Q4:
Met jointly with Patient Administration (PA was hosting, so details should appear in their minutes)
Basis of the discussion was about work Galen had been leading in the area of Provider Registries, and about potential collaboration opportunities with PA on services.
A discussion about the Service Functional Model and its purpose were conducted, and we were asked to give an overview of the process and approach.
Consensus was reached that a joint meeting should be planned for Atlanta in September.
Tuesday Q1:
Vince expressed concern about “losing control” point of view. There was discussion about the the role of the workgroup to better support other committees needs regarding SOA facilitation, education, outreach.
An update on the prior day’s meeting with Patient Admin was given
- Concern was expressed that PA had been working on messages for years and there was a perception that they were being asked to throw that work away
- Compounded concern regarding a miscommunication regarding the status of X.12 work which was taken as complete
- Involvement of X.12 and OMG indicated loss of control and perceived risk on part of PA
- Big issue regarding change of though process regarding SOA
- Asking the role of XML…
- Perhaps a more detailed level than they were used to engaging
- Wanted to visualize
Open Question: What is the role of SOA WG in allaying those concerns as part of the education process
- We have a significant education process to take part in to move thinking to a functional level
How to approach Committee Engagement differently
- Should have started with the presentation on HSSP
- There is an underlying assumption in the slides that people are thinking in “Functional Model” terms, which hasn’t proven to be the case
- PA hasn’t seen behavior around the content as part of their remit
- We may need some slides to talk about messages vs. services; functional model vs. MIF
Andy: Same issue is coming up with SAEAF. Separation of viewpoints (differentiating behavior from messaging) is not comfortable or familiar to many committees. Need to come out with clear examples of products to illustrate impact(s) of the viewpoints.
Ken: The current “standard slide deck” had been targeted to an external audience. For the HL7 community, it would be more effective to relate our work to existing HL7 artifacts and processes.
Vince: Need to resolve relationship to going outside of HL7. At leadership level there is recognition that this needs to happen. Some elements are backing doing this in HL7. Reasoning behind that needs to be exposed more. Success of the process needs to be emphasized (now that two have come through the process) and highlight that we have ended up with an HL7 artifact.
Inquiries have been “Why not just do [EIS] in HL7”?
Recommendation was made that SOA needs to prepare a document/briefing to highlight our successes, and doing a better job telling the story about how the process has been successful for EIS and RLUS which have now completed the cycle.
Hide Hasegawa:
In Japan, many of the developers are not yet familiar with the new ideas of SOA. If they had availability of these ideas in Japan, more information about these ideas in Japan would help drive active discussion about the subject.
DICOM is engineering based and easier to understand. HIT is a bit more complex making it harder to understand. Component side of SOA makes it harder to understand. Big gap between messaging and SOA.
NeHTA:
Changing discussion about solution delivery (in SOA) is very hard as there is an attitude/approach difference in a messaging-based “toolkit” vs. SOA. People will naturally revert back to their comfortable zone and talk about the problem in the context
Always hard when people consider messages and services as distinct because they are not. Comes back to adding value to what they are doing. Cohesion with a consistent paradigm like SAEAF is necessary to get a services paradigm understood. The challenge for HL7 is to drive to consistency in ways to discuss this.
Always delicate to interact with the communitybecause too much emphasis on services as new feeds market pushback that existing investments are not perceived as worthwhile. Intent is to focus on the value of the interoperability and the layering to promote that.
Andy: Messaging and SOA are not “side by side”. They are different paradigms. SOA in that regard has a higher calling, as it is pushing an architectural approach, where as instances between . SAEAF is bringing all of these pieces under a single umbrella.
When starting a discussion with people that do not have a services background it is exceedingly hard to differentiate a service from a message. It is not until one looks at a set of services in a context that the difference comes out.
Candidate Process for Engaging with Committees (or staff) about SOA
Show a Slide on SAEAF and how SOA fits within SAEAF
- Demonstrate SOA’s place within SAEAF
- Relate SOA work to other HL7 work in the context of SAEAF
Relate HSSP artifacts (such as SFM) to existing HL7 artifacts
- How does the RIM fit
- How does MIF relate
- How about V3 messaging
- How about CDA
“Spotlight” slide
Need to create a graphic that shows how services relate to messages to documents. Traceability to business process. SOA represents the business and drives the value to the business. SAEAF is largely about conformance, and [this SOA work] is a good partner with that. SOA as a method vs. a technology
Perhaps we re-work the Spotlight diagram as lenses
- (Ken note: binoculars with different color filters and the same image inside)
Need to add a few slides to bring SOA into an organizational context showing it in the context of an example.
Take EIS through a bunch of examples, -- do a drilldown showing how the SOA ends up using and leveraging HL7 under all the covers. [onionskin type diagram]
- SFM
- Parts of EIS that are relevant to an example
- An instance of an identity service (example)
- PIX/PDQ example
- HL7 messaging layer
Q3:
Walkthrough of EIS SFM to show example
Vince: In the detail interface section, the “Issues left to RFP submitters”, what do we do with this section in the second cycle when the SFM is being balloted as normative?
“relationship to levels of conformance” – note that they are all blank in the EIS SFM. Perhaps this is a holdover from before we defined conformance profiles. Need to refresh. [Post-session comment: Ken discussed this with Alan Honey, and it will be revised in the final ballot of the EIS SFM Normative Edition]
For the expression of functional profiles in the SFM, we may consider the use of actors as similar/consistent with an IHE profile. Action Item: Review IHE “profiling” and see what parts of that structure should be re-used. [Ken to talk to Charles Parisot].
Section 8 & 9: Revisit to reflect the SAEAF work.
Vince: Suggest that some of the points made in section 9 be considered as part of the educational materials as we interact with other HL7 workgroups.
Note: Section 10 – soften title to read “Recommendations for Technical Specifications”
Section 10: Recommendation to add metadata qualifiers (PIM/PSM/MDA; viewpoint, etc) to relate the Recommendations for Technical Issuance to the SAEAF.
The group acknowledged Cliff’s and Ginna’s work in pulling the short descriptions together about pertinent OMG specifications for consideration by the HSSP community.
Vince identified the need for some formal mechanism for outreach (internally and externally) about our work products and how they are being used and received.
Wednesday, Q1:
Alan Honey walked through the comments that had been received as part of the Normative EIS Ballot. As there was not a full quorum (and formal reconciliation is not required for a for-comment ballot), the issues were discussed and a gameplan determined.
The expectation is to ballot the Normative EIS as part of the September Ballot Cycle.
Wednesday, Q2:
Update from Security TC:
-PASS is being described as an SAEAF Alpha project
-Draft Project Scope statement to be sent to Security list and others as appropriate
-CBCC may participate in PASS as part of SAEAF Alpha project. The group is supportive of this. This may affect plans for September (Audit) and January (Access Control) ballots, as it may cause delays
-Audit is the focus now, as working on two concurrent SFMs was a bit challenging
Issues
-Semantic and functional profiles may not be being used correctly by the PASS group, and seek further guidance from SOA. They plan to better clarify their issues/understandings so that we can better address.
Definition ambiguity exists in the work, particularly in harmonizing definitions between SAEAF, HSSP, and security industry references.
Audit SFM Overview
Bernd conducted a high-level walkthrough of the Audit SFM. Presented the Class Diagram and contextualized Audit as related to other systems.
- Scope is almost completely defined at this stage
- Use case descriptions are complete and pretty well defined. Detailed description is underway
- Audit Class Diagram presented. The underpinning principles about the Audit Service has been agreed upon by the different views within the activity, but the details around the definitions have not yet been worked out.
Several of the discussions about the Audit Service have stemmed from the underpinned question about what was different about a Healthcare Audit. Requirements are being elaborated in the document to identify and clarify these points.
Gameplan: To update the tables (requirements, etc) within the document and elaborate the use cases. Calls are weekly. Reaching out to CBCC will extend the challenge and perhaps delay the timeline. Continuing with the hope of a September Ballot, though that may not be possible as a result of the Alpha Project activities (we may have to delay).
Update to Access Control Service:
> Not as mature as Audit Service
> Focused more on use case identification, use case description, and requirements definition.
> Gave a walkthrough of the Access Control Service and the diagram, explaining the Policy Enforcement approach within the architecture.
Not as mature as Audit. Requirements statements and the interface definitions are not yet complete.
Informally speaking, Audit Service is ~80% complete, and Access Control Service is ~40% complete.
> For consideration and information, an ISO document will be shared discussing Audit Information content appropriate for an audit record. ISO TC 215 WG4 – Security. Draft for future. Ken will distribute on the SOA list as related work.
Potential Future ServiceNeed: May be on a horizon the need for a Policy Evaluation Service to manage the assessment of policies / This would bring assertions, obligations, etc. that have been formalized to be assessed and evaluated.
Bernd asked SOA to host a quarter for the next WGM, same as this time.
* * * * *
As the quarter was set aside for security but we had extra time, following the Security Update the group received a number of short, introductory briefs on other activities in progress from new attendees:
IHE Update:
Lori Forquet gave a quick update on the IHE IT Infrastructure SOA White Paper. As of today, current draft that is being circulated is achieving consensus but not yet ready for public release. The paper is characterizing where IHE may add value and intersect into the layers of a SOA architecture.
Paper will be put out for public comment prior to its release. Lori agreed that an IHE community member will let the HL7 SOA community know when the comment period opens.
Service Registry discussion
Create a non-standard way to publish and discover services and interface specifications/definitions that can be shared. If there were a standard way to describe them and share them, it would be a useful community asset. Would help identify candidates for services for standardized, which ones people may elect to share, etc.
Muhammad gave an update on activities in [HL7] Pakistan
HL7 Version 3 Architecture and implementation. Plans to evolve that into SOA. Early work was exclusively messaging. Now they are looking to HSSP to help. They find it insufficient, not complete.
Seeking a way for community input/help that the defining services are correct.
Andy: Suggests looking at the Open Group. TOGAF has been independent of architecture, so their work in SOA has been a bit controversial.
Wednesday, Q3:
(Joint session among entirety of Steering Division)
Wednesday, Q4:
(did not meet)
Thursday, Quarter 1:
(joint session with Infrastructure and Messaging – see their minutes)
Thursday, Quarter 2:
HSD Update:
Progerss has been coming since the last WGM. They are prepared to go to ballot in the absence of significant changes. That said, they are happy to accept new changes should such some new recommendations be brought forward.
They will conduct calls for the coming weeks in anticipation of further comments, and cancel them if there are not new items.
Max gave an overview of the purpose of the HSD. He announced the partnership with NeHTA to build the provider directory, to which most access from Victoria will be via the Human Services directory. Victoria supplies the ability to search by service, then match it to providers via NeHTA. Victoria has agreed to test those interfaces.
Vince: Recommended encouraging NeHTA to consider using EIS as the interface for their Provider directory. Recommended that a reference to EIS be included as a touchpoint in the HSD SFM.