. I asked will we drag & drop workflow apps in 5 years? [seems reasonble!]
— Charles Webster MD ()
During today’s HIMSS16 pre conference symposium Interoperability and Health Information Exchange Symposium: The Road to Interoperability I had the opportunity to ask Grahame Grieve (GG) and Josh Mandel (JM) the following question (paraphrased, as is their answer).
Question: I spend part of my time in the workflow technology industry, where non-programmers have been able to create entire applications by drawing or clicking to create workflows, for decades.
Given your goals of fast and easy creation of health IT apps, based on SMART & FHIR, in five years, do you envision users (not programmers), who know their workflows best, to be able to create their own workflow apps by dragging-and-dropping SMART apps interacting with FHIR.
Answer (conflating GG & JM): We need to observe how SMART & FHIR are used, but yes that seems reasonable within a five-year time frame.
Most modern BPM (Business Process Management) platforms already have sophisticated incoming and outgoing APIs. Many have means to extend the drag-and-drop tasks they support. It will be interesting to see which of the following comes true more quickly.
- Health IT adds process-aware application architecture, such as workflow engines and workflow editors (I’m seeing this happen), capable of assembling SMART and FHIR-based sophisticated workflow applications.
- BPM adds hooks so its sophisticated workflow orchestration engines and graphical workflow editors can assemble SMART- and FHIR-based components and functionality into sophisticated workflow applications.
- Both! As in interesting mashups, such as BPM platforms integrated with traditional health IT, essentially outsourcing their workflow management.
Interesting answer! Where Will , & Healthcare Be In 5 Years?
— Charles Webster MD ()
