Paul
Grundy,
MD, MPH, IBM Well-Being Director
IBM Global Well Being Services
and Health Benefits
XML, a formatting language based on open standards, is key to the fluid exchange of information and transactions as healthcare gradually gets wired into a dynamic system. XML lets different kinds of information "talk" to each other, which is exactly what a national or global network that connects patients, doctors, hospitals and every other imaginable player together will need: a seamless and automated way to exchange data and orchestrate processes.
XML is the core technology underlying the Health Level 7 (HL7) standard under development for use in electronic health infrastructure. As a matter of fact, an electronic health record is not a static document stored in one place. It is really an XML file that would pull together and integrate data from a variety of sources (pharma, doctor, hospital, personal). Such a composite will also have speccial rules and logic associated with it to control who can see it, which parts of it, and under what circumstances.
In this sense, electronic health records are really complex data objects. DataPower makes hardware appliances that both accelerate the processing of XML networking, and helps keep them secure. In this sense they are critical components for processing the XML neccesary to enable an electronic ecosystem for health.
XML-rich networks like an eHealth infrastructure are really about enabling different applications on different platforms around the world to smoothly interact with one another. The Web is already evolving toward this model. It is at work in the complex, computerized dance that goes on in business supply chains, financial markets and other advanced network systems.
To faciliate this much richer way the Internet operates, the very framework of companies are being rebuilt to support XML in a new paradigm called Services Oriented Architecture, or SOA. This new model is intended to create a more flexible delivery of services on the network. Given the complexity of the healthcare ecosystem, SOA will be an important underpining for players to knit themselves together.
And that's why SOA is a major tech frontier where IBM is ramping up its expertise, as well as creating more capability with the DataPower acquisiton. It is also a natural outgrowth of our WebSphere middleware, which itself is a kind of meta-software for streamlining how all the applications, servers and databases in an enteprise can interoperate.
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