Since last July, a very interesting, meaningful collaboration has been going on with the Software Engineering Department of Universiti Malaya, where I am affiliated. It is a rather complex project that also serves as an assignment project for PhD students there. In short, we are creating a “builder” that can help us design clinical registries so that technical issues are as little of a barrier as possible when building a valid, reliable ones across clinical domains. We are currently in its beta testing phase.
From the eHealth Unit, I, A/Prof Nori, the lead of the registry/EHR section, and A/Prof Pang in the same section, who is also the head of the Unit, are participating in this project, while A/Prof TK is leading the SE Dept. We elders are not only involved in the design of the builder, but also in the overall supervision of the registry projects that actually are built and run with the medical specialists. We usually have an online meeting every week at 20:30, as our busy schedule allows us to meet after 20:00. My wife and I laughingly call it an “karoshi meeting” because it does not resemble the relaxed work culture of Malaysia, but does more of Japan’s.
Beta testing is very thorough. The engineers preset detailed test items in advance, and we check them one by one and report our impressions and feedback on a special sheet. The level of detail is astonishing, as is the level of UM’s graduate students in terms of the quality of the system. We pointed out the other week that the different ways would be easier to use from a clinical point of view, and all the points were cleared up this week. Conditional branches and formula inclusion are also well implemented.
It has been a great experience for me. Meanwhile, we, equipped with such a good system, will continue to work hard to recruit specialists who want to conduct registry studies together.
昨年の7月頃から、とても面白く有意義なコラボレーションが、所属するUniversiti Malayaのソフトウェア工学部と進んでいます。博士課程生の課題プロジェクトも兼ねた、かなり大きい案件です。妥当性と信頼性の高い臨床レジストリを構築する際に、できるだけ技術的な問題がバリアにならないようにデザインできる「ビルダー」をつくっています。目下そのベータテスト段階。
eHealth Unitからは、registry/EHRセクションのleadである私 A/Prof Noriと、同セクションの相棒でUnit長でもあるA/Prof Pangとが参加しています。SE学部での監修はA/Prof TK。我々おっさんはビルダーの設計への関与だけでなく、臨床レジストリを専門医たちと実際に構築し運営する案件たちを、全体統括する役目を負っています。忙しい皆の時間が合うのが20時以降なので、毎週2030時にオンライン会議をしています。ゆったりした労働風土のマレーシアには似つかないので、「過労死会議」と妻と笑って呼んでますが。
ベータテストは非常に綿密です。予めエンジニアたちがプリセットした詳細なテスト項目を1つ1つ確かめて、専用シートに操作感を報告します。ソフトウェア工学の作法に則っているんでしょうが、非常に細かくて驚きです。UMの大学院生のレベルの高さにも舌を巻きます。先々週に「臨床視点ではこうした方が使いやすい」と指摘した点が今週にぜんぶクリアされてくる。条件分岐や計算式の入れ込み機能もうまく実装されています。
いい経験をさせてもらっています。引き続き、本システムで強化された我々とレジストリ研究を行いたい専門医の募集に励みます。