Monday, July 23, 2012

HL7 FHIR Aggregation

Really good explanations recently on Grahame Grieve's weblog recently describing HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) from the perspective of v2, CDA and v3 implementation.


FHIR for v3 and CDA implementers
FHIR for v2 implementers

One thing I am still trying to understand is the issue of aggregation, which is accomplished using Atom feeds, which in itself makes a lot of sense, and may have all sorts of side benefits, though it is a little frustrating if your browser (ie Opera) tries to handle the aggregation as though it were a blog feed... but there are two kinds of aggregation we must consider here one when we aggregate a number of like resources, for instance as the result of a non-deterministic search, and the other when multiple types of resource are aggregation into a Message (for v3) or Document (for CDA) Resource.

I find this confusing because it appears that position is used within the Atom syndication to determine which Resource to use as the transport wrapper. Still trying to wrap my head around this. Should prove to get interesting very quickly.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

My Review of Mobile JavaScript Application Development


Mobile JavaScript Hybridization

By Piers Hollott from Victoria, BC on 7/10/2012

 

4out of 5

Pros: Well-written, Easy to understand

Best Uses: Intermediate

Describe Yourself: Developer

I have just finished reading a review copy of Adrian Kosmaczewski's book on Mobile Development using JavaScript, and I highly recommend it, particularly if you are faced with a decision about mobile development frameworks and you have a team which is already familiar with hybridized JavaScript approaches like JQuery or GWT.

After dealing with some basic groundwork, Kosmaczewski devotes a solid chapter to each of the prevailing uses of JavaScript in the mobile arena: HTML5 with JavaScript, JQuery Mobile, Sencha Touch, and PhoneGap. While there are advantages to all of these approaches, the prevailing wind seems to indicate use of JQuery Mobile if you are already invested in JQuery, and Sencha Touch if you are building an enterprise-size solution.

Either of these approaches - actually, all of these approaches - will allow you to deploy to multiple platforms, which is a key component of JavaScript hybridization: ubiquity. The difficulty I have personally encountered is the flip side of the ubiquity coin, flexibility. JavaScript may be everywhere, but can also become everything, and this can lead to paralysis.

An example of this: I have recently been working on some development in with mobile SVG, which is becoming more and better supported on various mobile platforms. SVG is not hard to work with, and rolling your own application to do exciting things is enjoyable if you like that sort of thing; however... do you use HTML with embedded SVG? HTML5? Just SVG with E4X/EcmaScript (which is just JavaScript, really)? or Raphael.js, or Sencha Touch, which encapsulates it?

At some point, you just need to stick your paddle in the water and see which way the current takes you. And Kosmaczewski's book is a good starting point.

(legalese)

Promoting health? It's all in the game | ...


I really want to see this sort of technology succeed, in part because it demonstrates so much the principle of  "genius of the and" - gamification of health not involves the patient more with his own diagnosis and care, it can also provide his healthcare team with better, more regular check in points, as well as an access point for delivery of timely information. For healthcare to be successful, it needs to follow a pattern like this.

Okay, I'm a techie, and I can't help thinking on that level... this approach to delivery of information follows an, albeit loose, Model View Control (MVC) pattern - identifying what information is required to trace healthcare needs, then coordinating between patients' and practitioners' ability to view this information and respond to it, and formalizing a channel of communication between patient and practitioner, outside office hours.

Bertalan Meskó, MD
Promoting health? It's all in the game | Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - Meet Roxxi - a feisty and fully-armed virtual nanobot. Billed as medicine's mightiest warrior, she's fighting an epic battle deep inside the human body where she launches rapid-fire...