RSS Reading Lists – Applications for healthcare?

Dave is on to something here.  Somehow I even think that OPML may have some remarkable applications in healthcare.

No kidding.  OPML and this "reading list" functionality is potentially very powerful well beyond blogging and information/news websites.  (I'm not sure "reading list" is the right term – as it is defines the technology with reference to one use of the technology, rather than what it is that the technology does — RSS isn't BSS – evel though blogs were the 1st use of the technology). How about AOPML – for Automated OPML?

Let's consider something that is (for some reason) pervasive in Health Information Technology:  templates.

Templates are tools that developers and "knowledge engineers" have developed to assist providers in the documentation of clinical encounters.

You would think that providers would LOVE templates .. as they diminish the amount of free-text entry:
I click on something and have long sentences of text automatically pasted into the record.

But it turns out that providers DON'T love these things .. because invariably .. someone else created them .. the sentences aren't quite what we want to express .. and:

1. No template exists for "my toe hurts because I dropped a bowling ball on it 6 days ago." 
2. Finding a particular text passage may require navingating a long tree of a template:
1. Pain
1. in extremity
1. Lower Extremity
1. foot
1. toe
2. Duration
1. days
1. 6
3. Text
1. "dropped a bowling ball on it."

Users like macros though … and oddly – I've even seen people use 3rd party macro tools that push free text into templates! 

So .. what if the template components were defind in OPML and editable by end-users in a good UI?  Might help .. especially if the template navigation/use implementation is

Ok … that's nice .. but how do I share my template components with others?  What if my "toe" template is really good?  Here's where the BOPML comes in .. as others can subscribe to my toe template .. and if I change it .. then they get my changes.

hmm ..

technorati tags: EMR 2.0, EHR 2.0