I attended day 1 of the CDISC Asia-Pacific Interchange yesterday (thanks to Bron Kisler for inviting me) and I thought I will share my experience here.
While I am not as deeply involved with CDISC (in comparison to HL7, DICOM or IHE), I did performed a fair amount of research on the standard about three years ago, during a project pertaining to preclinical trials.
During that period of time, I tried to find out more on how one can effectively bridge the data between EMR/EHR and CDM solutions (for translational research and analytic purposes). The result wasn’t very encouraging as;
- I could not locate any information pertaining to the topic on the Internet
- The local Clinical Research industry had no idea what goes on in the world of Health Informatics (I ended up delivering mini-lectures on health informatics to those fine folks)
- The local Healthcare Informatics industry mostly had no idea what CDISC was, nor were they remotely interested in it
So imagine the pleasant surprise I had when I noticed a track in the CDISC Asia-Pacific Interchange, discussing “Clinical Research and Hospital Information Systems / EHRs”.
I would also like to share a particular conversation that took place. An overseas attendee recognised me (remember, this is not a health informatics conference, hence I was a ‘unfamiliar face’ to many people) and queried why I attended this particular conference.
My reply, which I would also like to share with you folks, is that Clinical Research is one area where there are no (or at best – minimum) baggage for implementing standards, if there is one remote field left in the world of healthcare Informatics to do the ‘right thing’ the first time round, then Clinical Research may be the answer.
So if you want to make a difference, then consider working on CDISC.
BinaryHealthCare (BNHC) 