e-HealthExpert.org - Primum non nocere

Besides easing our everyday e-life, the Semantic Web will, most probably, also end the present day Babel Tower of Health IT intercommunication protocols (HL7, X.12, HXP and others).

Some of the concepts in the following article are not easy to follow, but they surely deserve some of your time. I wonder, why was the article's example taken from healthcare?

"The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation." -- Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, Ora Lassila, The Semantic Web, Scientific American, May 2001 .

Further reading and technical papers may be found at: The Semantic Web home at W3C

In April 2003, in Innsbruck/Austria, took place an Workshop
on "New Approaches to the Systematic Evaluation of Health Information Systems" (HIS-EVAL).
From that workshop resulted a declaration - the Declaration of Innsbruck - with a set of definitions, observations and recommendations focusing the need to systematicaly evaluate the Health Information Systems.

This article was once available at: http://www.umit.at/efmi/reports/HIS-EVAL%202004.pdf
As of 2005.03.06 that link seems to be broken.
If you know a new one please report it to us (the email address is at the bottom of this page).

Prof. Scot Silverstein's, an experienced medical informaticist, has a web page named: Sociotechnologic Issues in Clinical Computing: Common Examples of Healthcare IT Difficulties. In that page he presents a clear insight on the sociotechnologic issues in clinical computing, giving real life examples of dangerous, common, costly, preventable healthcare information technology failures.