[Gllug] European Health Systems

[John Hearns]

On Fri, 2002-04-19 at 11:29, Richard Cottrill wrote:
> Care to elaborate on this point:
> 
> > OK - these are over  a year old,
> > and there is now use of digital certificates:
> > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/23813.html
> >
> 
> I'm just a bit curious. So far as my limited understanding goes edifact is a
> pretty open protocol (freshmeat has only a reference to the ubiquitous Perl
> module so far as free implementations go). There's not really any mention of
> specific technologies in here, or even very much in the way of political
> shuffling.
> 
> To my initial reading it just seems like a pretty standard,
> technology-neutral, business decision. There's a Big Brother-ish electronic,
> confidential records angle, but IMHO that's not a big feature of this
> really.
> 
> What's your concern with it? Don't take this as a flame that it's not; I
> just don't understand.
> 

I'm not taking it as flame bait.
I welcome that digital certificates are being used.
But please think - this NHSnet project has been going on
for years. I remember having meetings on in in 1996/97.

However please look at the first two articles.
They kinda summarise the feelings I had/still have.

I really should not vent my spleen on a public list,
as I say I'm aware that things I say today here can be searched for
years in the future.
Who knows - I might like to return to the NHS.
I won't burden or bore you all with my feelings on the matter.





Anyway, a couple of spleen venting things:

X.400 email.
We TOLD them so. We did. We said that the world and
their auntie uses SMTP. But no.
Yes - X.400 does have lots of technical advantages.
But in the world of the Internet de facto standards prevail.

EDIFACT - they are still sticking with Edifact.
But how about the Government's own public commitment to using
XML?

Reed codes - I don't know a lot about.
Just do some web searching of your own.















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