Inspired by a recent French Experience

I am writing this on the airplane returning from a trip to France.  The main purpose of this trip was to visit my son and his wife.  They are currently living in a rustic part of the French Alps.  They live in a very small village high in the Alps called Les Terrasses.  The closest town to purchase supplies is called La Grave.   It is 1000 vertical feet down to La Grave and obviously the same coming back.  With snow, going down is a fun ski.  No matter what, coming back with provisions on their backs is an effort.   My son and daughter-in-law do not have a car or a TV in France.  What they do have is a simpler life.  What they do have is happiness.

After spending a week with them, I take home a lesson about striving for a simpler life.  I could not stop thinking how this lesson could and should be applied to the world of health data standards.
As you know much of my professional duties are to be your “eyes” and “ears” at X12 and HL7 meetings.   Much of the conversations at each of these organizations are devoted to the development of sophisticated and secure messages.   X12 being about messaging administrative data content and HL7 being about messaging clinical data content.   The complexity increases when we acknowledge the need to harmonize these two message standards along with others. I could not help thinking from my French experience and lessons learned from my son and his wife that there must be a simpler path.   In thinking about a simpler time I think of the letter that a wife might have sent to a frontier exploring husband by Pony Express.   I am sure that letter said, “I love you.”   Today with all our sophisticated computers and WI FI connectivity the message sent by today’s wife to her globetrotting husband is the same, “I love you.”  WOW!  In 200 years the data content has not changed!!!

Are the questions our first public health epidemiologists asked different than those being asked by today’s epidemiologists?   I think not.  What is different are all the bells and whistles our “new” tools have enabled.   Caution:  With bells and whistles also comes bunches of hoops to jump through. I am sure that in 5 years there will be new technology that will add new complexity to sending those ever constant messages.  For me the simpler way is to first recognize our “JOB ONE” is not the vehicle used to transport the message, but rather the content of that message.   The next step is to do something about it. I think the NAHDO work group for the Present on Admission Indicator is a small example of how the time is being spent to make data content all it can be to be relevant when our kids’ kids are doing our jobs. My son and daughter-in-law selectively use new technology in their simpler life. The technology is only useful when it enriches the quality of their lives.  The same lesson applies to the world of health data standards.   Our technology is only useful when it enriches the quality of our data.   When the technology gets in the way of the necessary relationships to make the data useful, then a simpler more personal solution is needed. 

In closing, I want to thank my son and his wife for their living example of how making things simpler can make things better.  I hope this can be a lesson for all of us in the health data standards world.