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Attending: Joel, Valerie, Carl,
Agenda
1. Virtual patient conformance for certification
Valerie commented that the virtual patient specification is now available for public review. There is an interest in developing a virtual patient tools certification program to enable content to be distributed through the AAMC MedEdPORTAL. What makes the development of a certification program challenging is that none of the currently available tools meet the functional requirements for a player in full. Some tools have a branching approach to virtual patient development, where others use a more schema-based design that is linear. Going from branching to linear and vice versa is very difficult process. But exchanging cases across branching systems is easier. The working group is developing profiles of the specification around these different families of virtual patient tools.
Joel asked Carl if they were planning to implement virtual patients. Carl said that currently they did not have plans to.
Joel asked if the profiles for currently available. Valerie commented that they are not yet available, but that working group members are developing spreadsheets that show what data elements they share in common. The different profiles identified are:
- Schema
- Branching
- Global Navigation
- Virtual Worlds
Joel recommended testing compliance by profile. One component of this would be checking the data schemas. On mededportal, you would have to say which profile the virtual patient tool uses. This would result in four different certification types. He recommended seeing if that would meet AAMC needs.
Joe commented that usually each specification has one notion of compliance. It's how you put it together that is in the profile. This is different than that. He added that if we have profiles when the base specification comes out, we'd have a conformance process. Conformance suites don't usually come out at the same time as the specification; there is a lag.
Joel asked if the profiles would have to go through the standards development process. Valerie commented they would not, but they would be published on the MedBiquitous website. Joel agreed it was reasonable and practical. He offered the when there are reasonable drops of the profiles, the technical steering committee could take a look at them.
Valerie thanks Joel for his input in agreed to share it with the executive committee.
2. REST Guidelines Publication
Now published and tweeted! If we get add'l comments, cn have point revision.
We'll skip the call on Nov 25. We will have our next call December 9, and that will be the last call for the year. The committee will start up again January 13.
Happy thanksgiving!