Motivation

Digitalization in the medical industry is the big topic of this decade, but if we want to evolve, we also have the responsibility to ensure a smooth transformation of the existing. We running established structures and systems that cannot simply be replaced overnight – neither should be replaced anyway.

Networking begins with generic interoperability, not with yet another new monolithic product. Our idea is a communication standard that can be integrated piece by piece in the form of individual modules in any system landscape. The focus on a clear separation of the technological concerns is a key feature here. Integrate our standard into your products and keep your existing user interface as an entry point!

Who we are?

We see ourselves as a working group (located in Germany) for the early evaluation of high detailed cross-cutting topics which sooner or later have to be part in any standards. See us as free contributors whose unique point is that we rely on agile iterations to push standardization forward quickly…

We deliberately design our interfaces on a low level of abstraction, which does not leave too much room for interpretation. We don’t leave you alone and define clear semantics within our standards, which are validated by experts in the clinical research business and used in real application platforms. And above all – we have experienced IT architects who know what resources your developers need for efficient integration.

And if that’s not enough, you can help to shape this young standard! We rely on an uncomplicated dialogue (also from technician to technician), because large committees are slowing down digitalization

How does our standard relate to existing standards?

First of all, we have to make clear that under no circumstances we want to compete against larger standardization initiatives like HL7. However, our focus is not on the breadth, but on the depth – specifically in relation to the business of medical research studies. Our work begins where even standards such as HL7 leave room for further details, namely at the process level. The pivotal point are the use cases – WHEN WHICH information has to be transferred WHERE.

In order to be able to describe the relationships between the sometimes very complex sub-systems of IT-landscapes, a clear definition of the role each individual system plays in the overall context is required. The aim is to comply with the so-called “Separation of Concerns” (an elementary design principle in software engineering).

After we have become aware of the modularization, all cross-module communication must be treated as if it would be communication with an external system. This implies the need for standardized and fully documented communication contracts.

Our vision is to develop a modularization-standard, that can be mapped easy to exisiting architectures using http based Web-API endpoints. When the planned level of maturity has been reached, our agenda provides for the submission of our model-extensions to broader standards (as HL7) in order to promote concretization for specific nodes.