Thursday, November 29, 2007

HL7 Training Update

Update on CMS plans to hold a pre-HL7 Conference training session…

CMS announced this week that Tuesday, 12/11/07 is the planned date for this training. This call is being coordinated by CMS with the STAG, PSTG, and other interested individuals related to HL7 MITA development. Anyone interested or involved in MITA State Self-Assessments, or MITA-related HL7 development is invited to attend. The agenda will include multiple speakers providing information about the next MITA steps and the January HL7 meeting objectives. Specific dial-in information and the exact time of the training is expected to be available soon.

I will try to post the training agenda when it is made available from CMS.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Back to Nature

I am off to to distant shrines renowned in sundry lands.

Perhaps our friend MITA Zeaolot will be moved by the blog spirits to post in my brief absence :-)

See you next week, and if you haven't voted yet in the November poll, please do.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Top 10 reasons why service-oriented architecture is like a Thanksgiving meal:

Like a Thanksgiving meal, it takes a lot of work to put together an SOA ... and no one wants to clean up the associated mess that comes with it.

Reuse, the next round of Web services you build are the IT equivalent of next week's turkey sandwiches and soups. You should be getting a lot of meals out of this feast.

Like a big turkey meal, too much SOA can put you to sleep.

An SOA project can bring together a lot of people you rarely see. In fact, you probably aren't even sure you want to see some of them.

SOA can give rise to lots of interesting combinations, kind of like turducken (a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey).

Everyone offers up advice on how to cook up an SOA, but they always leave you with the distinct feeling that they aren't so sure these tips actually work.

You can undertake lots of small projects while you've got your SOA bird in the oven.

It takes a solid network and good communication to move all the food around a Thanksgiving table so that everyone gets to pick exactly what they want.
In many ways, it's a service-oriented meal dependent on a loosely-coupled infrastructure.

Screw up your SOA and you'll never hear the end of it.

HL7 Conference Update

Just in from the MITA rumor mill (and yes, that is the fabled "Cone of Silence")...CMS may be planning a pre HL7 Conference training session.

Some MITA type folks who will be attending HL7 for the very first time have expressed concern that they may need to spend valuable time at the conference getting up to speed on the basics of HL7 and the RIM when this time could be spent with the HL7 MITA Workgroup.

In response to this concern, CMS is looking into providing a training session for CMS and State staff, in a webinar format, that will briefly cover HL7's relevance to MITA and lay the groundwork for what will be covered in the HL7 MITA Workgroup sessions in San Antonio in January. If it happens, it sounds like the webinar will will be held sometime in mid December. Stay tuned for updates on this important pre-conference event.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Getting Ready for Turkey Day...MITA Style


My SOA approach to Thursday's Feast....
(Click on picture for larger view)

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

NMEH Information

The MITA Matters blog inbox has received several inquiries regarding the NMEH; mainly, what is the NMEH and how do I get involved? NMEH (pronounced Neh-mee) is an abbreviation for the National Medicaid Electronic Data Interchange Healthcare Workgroup. NMEH members are primarily State staff. In some cases, NMEH members can be vendors directly representing State staff. This group exists to “provide a united Medicaid voice when working with the health insurance industry". Lately, the NMEH has been a critical member of the MITA team by reviewing business processes, participating in the MITA track at the MMIS conference, and providing other vital support to the MITA initiative.

If you are working in a State on MITA and are wondering how to actively participate in the further development of the initiative, joining the NMEH MITA workgroup is a good idea. To be placed on the NMEH listserv (to receive periodic emails about NMEH activities and info), simply send an email to this address: NMEH@edifecs.com. You will receive a reply to your email with instructions on how proceed from there. If you have questions about NMEH’s role in MITA and would like to find out more, you may contact Andrea Danes, one of the NMEH MITA sub workgroup co-chairs, at Andrea.Danes@FOXsys.com .

Editor’s note: The book, “The Mouse and the Motorcycle” has no direct link or affiliation to the NMEH whatsoever. Well, okay, it does in my small and twisted brain. You see, when I was but a wee lad, I had a favorite aunt named Emily. All of the cousins called her “Em” for short but I, being one of the youngest of the cousin rat pack, could not master the simple “Em” and instead called her “Nem” and by extension, occasionally “Nemmy”. One of my aunt’s favorite things to do whenever I would visit her was to read me the Beverly Cleary book “The Mouse and the Motorcycle”. So it is one of those weird and unexplainable things in life that whenever I hear or say the word acronym “NMEH”, I immediately think about a little mouse named Ralph and his shiny motorcycle. (Yes, I have tried therapy and no, it did not work…)

Nuts and Bolts and ROI

I was asked recently to comment about the return on investment for service oriented architectures. Because SOA is the approach, not the solution, cost justifying it in the context of a quarterly budget is tough – and perhaps even counter-effective. I realize that this is not the best answer to folks who are trying to sell an investment in MITA to a CIO, but it is, unfortunately, the nature of the beast that ROI in today's IT market makes a direct correlation between the investment in the nuts and bolts of the system and performance measures of that system. In that light, an MMIS that is built using an SOA approach may provide a faster and more accurrate claims processing engine but this performance improvement in moving claims through the mill misses the mark in terms of the real value of MITA - maturing all of the business processes assciated with the Medicaid Enterprise and improving the quality of care being given to Medicaid beneficiaries. ROI in this context will ultimately be measured in the lower program costs that result from improved benficiary care. Because program dollars and IT dollars usually come out of different pots, it is difficult at best to correlate cost savings across the two budgets. Lower application maintenance costs are the closest thing I can come up with as a tangible IT ROI for an SOA build related to MITA. I am interested in hearing from anyone who has faced the challenge of selling MITA in terms of ROI to a State CIO.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Frosty Friday

First frost this morning at Mikey’s humble home. Take some time away from your busy work schedules to enjoy the fleeting remnants of Fall. Watch the geese fly, take a deep breath of the crisp November air, drink some cider, bake a pie, or go for a walk this evening and enjoy the Autumn sky. We all work so hard that we tend to forget sometimes that life has a way of passing us by. So take some time today or this weekend for yourself, for your family, you have earned it!

Thursday, November 8, 2007

New Meeting Strategy


I tried this in a meeting yesterday afternoon. I think I pulled it off but the meeting notes I took are pretty much worthless...

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

HL7 Meeting in January

The next step toward using MITA artifacts to do actual systems development work is to transcribe the MS Word versions of Business Processes into a modeling language that can then be passed along to developers for implementation. The concept of taking the text descriptions of the business processes found in the MITA Business Process Model and turning them into Universal Modeling Language (UML) was proven to be plausible through development of the Enroll Provider Demo that was presented at the 2007 MMIS conference. The demo proved that users of disparate technical platforms could submit a standardized input to invoke business services that support a MITA Business Process and receive a standardized output, again, independent of the technical platform.

Why am I telling you this? Well, primarily because it makes me look smart! But I also bring it up here because most of the modeling of the MITA Business Processes remains to be done and the HL7 standards that will support these models are still under development. In order to evolve the BPM, a MITA focus group has been formed within HL7 to leverage their tools and methodology to create the Business Processes in Unified Modeling Language (UML) as the next step in evolving the MITA Framework into the foundation for detailed design specifications (okay, I stole that line, sue me). The next opportunity for this group to get together cheek-to-cheek (hey, what happens in San Antonio stays in San Antonio) is coming up in January.

During the HL7 conference in January in San Antonio, TX, the HL7 MITA focus group will meet to develop the work plan, set the direction for the work, and solicit state input and volunteers. NOW is the time for state voices to be heard as the UML development work begins. Just as state input is valuable in reviewing and revising the Business Processes, it is even more valuable in development of the UML versions. Further refinement of the Business Processes will take place during the course of this development work. Additionally, the data standards for use in each Business Process will also begin to be drafted (okay, so I stole that too!)

This is a great, nigh, GRAND opportunity for anyone involved in MITA to develop a new skill! UML modelers right now are a scarce resource, trust me, I’ve looked! This may be the perfect opportunity for someone to step outside the world of their miserable little cubicle, spread their wings, and fly with reckless abandon toward the brave new world of business process modeling. Just think of the longer hours, the separation from family, the late evenings of high anxiety and frustration, the 80 hour work… weeks…okay, maybe don’t think of those things, but seriously, it IS a golden opportunity to become part of an elite class of “crossover analysts” who dwell in the netherworld between the Land of Requirements Development and the Land of Systems Design, never really fitting in with either class, not having a clan of your own with which to identify, always being on the outside looking in, always the Bride’s Maid and never the…Bride….okay forget all of that too. This is going according to plan here.

Look, just check out the link here and decide for yourself, but don’t ever say you weren’t given an opportunity to play an active role in the development of MITA because here is your chance! http://www.hl7.org/events/sanantonio012008/

MITA Matters November Poll

The November Poll is up.
Scroll to the bottom of the blog.

Go ahead, take a shot!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

October Poll Results


In the inagural MITA Matters poll, Mikey posed the question, "How familiar are you with the MITA State Self Assessment (SS-A) Process?". Fourty five people voiced their opinions, the results are presented here. I was pleased and a little surprised by the results.
For those of you who are kodachromically-challenged here is the breakdown:

37% Had a high level of understanding
28% Had an adequate level of understanding
31% Said they needed more training
2% Had no knowledge

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