Due to McKessonHBOC's size and number of customers the range of versions supported for these interfaces is 2.1 to 2.4 with most live interfaces currently at the version 2.2 level. The primary barrier to upgrading the interfaces to newer versions is the operational impact to an organization during the upgrade. However, the development of a National PMRI Standard is an extremely beneficial goal and it is therefore submitted that the scope be defined in several incremental phases. This can be done by narrowing the scope of the transactions within each phase and by narrowing the system interactions affected in each phase. The question of prioritizing the transactions becomes a question of identifying the primary area of concern.
Subsequent phases can introduce the remaining transactions identified above.
Ensuring that the national standards are synchronized with existing and future international standards will help organizations such as the CDC by supporting reporting requirements from the World Health Organization and the success of global disease management strategies. This will also result in reduced costs in standards development as valuable contributions from other nations are leveraged. As a company operating throughout the world, McKessonHBOC actively promotes the internationalization of standards and requirements to reduce expensive regional customizations in our products. The development of PMRI depends not only on the development of standard messaging transactions, as outlined above, but also on the adoption of uniform data standards. The common information model supported by explicit vocabulary and message standards will help ensure that the benefits of complete and comprehensive PMRI are delivered.