E-mail
Attending: Joel Farrell, Dan Rehak, Valerie Smothers, James Fiore
Valerie informed the committee that the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) had announced the Activity Management System and its use of the MedBiquitous Medical Education Metrics standard for collecting activity data. The committee welcomed the news. Valerie added that the technical specifications for the ACCME had not yet been released and that there may be questions regarding the implementation prior to the release.
Next the group reviewed Jeroen Donkers' comment on the REST Guidelines. Jeroen commented that the guidelines were useful, but that he was unfamiliar with ATOM and JSON. He added that a discussion of authentication and security would be helpful.
James commented that security was addressed in Knowing When to REST. Dan commented that it would be appropriate to add a statement saying that when you are using REST and you have security concerns, transport REST over HTTPS. Joel agreed. You secure REST services the same way you secure web pages, basic http auth headers, user id and password, or some kind of token and binary security code running over an ssl connection. Valerie agreed to add some security information to the document.
Valerie asked if more information on ATOM and JSON would be appropriate. Joel replied that the existing references to ATOM and JSON specifications were sufficient. James and Dan agreed.
Dan commented that he thought of another potential mechanism for feedback. Simon Grant is one of the lead researchers for JISC in the UK. They do not have a rest document. Dan recommended using Simon as a liaison and seeing if they have any comments. He recommended wording the note carefully, emphasizing that we are trying to create something simple and lightweight.
Joel added that the document needs to be couched; it's designed for newcomers to rest. It would be good to find out if we are going down the wrong path. He said he was okay with sending it to JISC.
James commented that his only concern was around time. He asked how quickly we expected the feedback. Dan commented that we could ask for comments within a couple of weeks. Joel asked Valerie to make updates based on Jeroen's e-mail and go ahead and submit to just cut through Dan. The goal of the committee is to publish by the end of October.
Competencies
Dan told the group that the IEEE is meeting in Stuttgart next Monday to discuss competency standards. Several Europeans will be there to talk about what they've done. He added that he is interested as a senior technical advisor to ADL, which is looking to produce a new version of SCORM that harmonizes across specifications and standards groups. Competency is high on the list of things to include. He is looking for solutions to put in the can be validated and accredited 12 months from now. He's meeting with Sarah Porter at JISC to discuss. He expects that ADL will get in touch with MedBiquitous soon to see what we have. Valerie commented that she had offered to send a copy of the MedBiquitous competency white paper to Don Holmes of the IEEE, and that she would do that.
Dan recommended moving forward quickly on the development of the specification.
Required vs recommended list
Valerie summarized that Tim wanted a discussion of what are the trade-offs when making required list versus recommended list. Joel commented that it may be a good time for Tim to present the white paper to the committee. He asked that Valerie keep sending issues to the committee.
Valerie added that Rosalyn Scott, a member of the MedBiquitous board of directors, has been tasked with outlining the vision for a new VA simulation center. Her vision includes use of virtual patients and the development of the competency framework, both of which have implications for MedBiquitous standards implementation. She will keep the committee apprised of any developments.