For Appavu, director of systems planning for Cook County Hospital, Chicago, and the Cook County Bureau of Health Services, science and technology are not just his job. They're his passion. Md. A native of Madras, India, Appavu has been involved with healthcare standards development for about a decade, an interest he developed shortly after he began working with information systems at Cook County Hospital in 1986. He adds, somewhat needlessly, that he's crazy about books. Object-oriented technology also fascinates Appavu because of its relationship to medicine.
Cells communicate, process information and interact.
Much like the way nature uses cells, object-oriented technology uses objects as the basic building blocks of systems. At conferences, I often tell healthcare professionals that we know how living systems work. We can use that knowledge to develop integrated IT systems. Something in common Appavu discovered early on that standards are critical to developing such integrated systems. People began to realize we need common standards.