For data accessibility in snaté, the Unified Namespace
As the population ages and our lifestyles generate an explosion of chronic diseases, medical progress has never been faster. The volume of scientific recommendations means they are piling up, one replacing the other.
Currently, scientific data doubles every 73 days. This requires constant vigilance from physicians and healthcare professionals. However, in an increasingly saturated medical world, where physicians are overloaded with administrative tasks, how will they find the time to keep pace with new information? And to implement changes in recommendations in patient care?
Faced with this saturation, a question arises: how can we transpose these numerous scientific recommendations to the operating room, while dynamically personalizing care for each patient case?
In this context, the interoperability of medical data is becoming a cornerstone of tomorrow's medicine. Standards such as FHIR® and SDC are no longer mere technical options: they are decisive levers for transforming information into action and placing the patient at the heart of truly dynamic and tailored care.
FHIR® is a standard that stands for “Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources” and was developed by Health Level Seven International (HL7) in 2011. It is a universal “translator” for exchanging data widely used in more than 50 countries.
SDC is a new standard “ISO/IEEE 11073-SDC” meaning “Service-oriented Device Connectivity”, supported by the company Dräger (Draeger).
However, other factors strongly influence patient risk before, during, and after care. Many external, often unpredictable, elements come into play, whether related to the patient's behavior or the surrounding organization. Seemingly trivial everyday situations can make all the difference. Here are a few everyday examples: did the patient take their medication correctly? Have they been fasting for 8 to 12 hours? Is the correct side of the body to be operated on clearly identified? Is the planned equipment available at that time? In an emergency, is a bed actually free? And if something unforeseen occurs, is medical staff always available? Even a software update, more aesthetically pleasing but unstable, can derail the organization. These variables, numerous and often combined in unpredictable ways, create immense operational complexity. The result: every day, interventions are postponed or canceled, not for medical reasons, but because of the silent chaos surrounding the act of care.
To ensure patient well-being, it is essential to adopt a systemic approach. But we are dealing with a complex system, in constant motion, evolving in real time. This dynamic, often compared to that of the "double pendulum," illustrates an inherently chaotic behavior, where each element can have a disproportionate impact on the whole. It's the butterfly effect!
In such a context, rigid standards and fixed frameworks quickly reveal their limitations. It is clearly unthinkable to mobilize an army of IT developers to recode applications for each change, then have everything validated again. The pace of transformation is simply too fast. We must now think about agility, "intrinsic interoperability," and continuous adaptation.
A systemic vision applied to hospital IT inevitably leads to the generation of massive, constantly evolving data. When it is possible to extract this data in real time, which remains a challenge, this data is often duplicated, incomplete, inconsistent, or disconnected from its clinical context. This poor quality of massive data represents a
a real obstacle: neither Data Scientists nor Artificial Intelligence are able to exploit them to extract value. The result?
A waste of time and money, and above all a missed opportunity to improve the quality of care and patient safety.
With this in mind, IT tools must "clean" and "contextualize" the data at the source; but how can all this be done in real time? All this while maintaining the constraints of a strong medical Quality Management System (QMS) and cybersecurity?
This is where the concept of Unified Namespace (UNS) comes in, a radically different "event-driven" approach, born of "Industry 4.0." The industrial world has been extremely standardized since at least 1988, and today, the UNS has acquired all its letters of nobility and has made it possible to take into account this systemic vision. However, whether in industry or in the medical field, the UNS is far from being a replacement solution. We will see why and how the UNS offers a complementarity with existing standards to meet the challenges of this digital transformation in healthcare.
The challenges of managing medical information in a constantly changing environment
As mentioned, the increase in pathologies and scientific recommendations requires healthcare professionals to quickly adapt to new guidelines. However, information overload in a complex medical environment can lead to the loss or underuse of crucial information, thus compromising the quality of care.
One key solution is to provide the anesthesiologist and surgeon in the operating room with a calculated and personalized patient risk, while taking into account each patient's unique medical history. Where previously decisions were made based on generic and standardized forms, today these professionals need information that integrates not only the patient's medical history data, but also real-time parameters such as the evolution of their vital signs, their current environment, and their specific reactions to the current treatment. This high level of personalization allows for more precise risk management and better patient care during the procedure.
Today, the medical world is not seeking rapid delivery of care at all costs, as this can lead to risks associated with haste. The focus is more on the robustness of protocols and the reliability of clinical decisions. If we talk about speed, it's more about the need to quickly have contextualized information, allowing for real-time patient risk assessment, based on data framed by thresholds.
Doctors rely on the statistical concept of standard deviation, because zero risk does not exist. Especially in France, the secret to safety and quality of care lies in the ability of doctors to control variations and stay within risk ranges.
To make all this possible, it is imperative to have access to quality, clean, near-real-time unified data.
FHIR and SDC standards: necessary but partial progress
The FHIR and ISO/IEEE 11073-SDC standards represent significant advances in how health information is exchanged and managed globally. FHIR, for example, offers a flexible architecture that enables the integration of data from different sources, whether hospitals, laboratories, or other institutions. ISO/IEEE 11073-SDC, on the other hand, focuses on harmonizing data across different systems, enabling more seamless interaction between diverse technologies and applications.
On the one hand, while effective in a number of cases, these current standards rely on "static and deterministic" technologies. On the other hand, when a systems view is considered, the modern healthcare environment is in "perpetual motion." Therefore, current technologies alone are not sufficient to solve all the challenges.
Unified Namespace (UNS): an integration solution for healthcare
The Unified Namespace (UNS) is an industrial architecture principle that appeared in 2003, then formalized and significantly accelerated from 2014, in the wake of new standards related to Industry 4.0. Faced with the multiplication of data sources and the growing complexity of their interactions, the need for a unified and structuring model has become strategic. The UNS is based on an "events" approach, making it possible to centralize, organize and contextualize in real time all the heterogeneous data flows of the factory in a consistent format accessible to all systems. Where other architectures already proposed to centralize and standardize information, the UNS stands out for its ability to offer a systemic vision, and to dynamically and automatically adjust to the "chaotic system" mentioned above, while ensuring a reliable and up-to-date Single Source of Truth (SSoT).
Each piece of data is thus contextualized from its creation, according to its origin, its moment of generation and its use, guaranteeing relevant and responsive exploitation throughout the industrial ecosystem.
In the medical context, and within the limits of what each country's regulations allow, this means that the UNS would make it possible to link medical data from even more diverse horizons than current standards, such as scientific recommendations, treatment protocols, and other sources of information in this "single data source", accessible in real time by all stakeholders involved in the care of a patient.
Thanks to the UNS, each healthcare professional could have a unified and contextualized view of all the information relevant to a given patient, at the precise moment it is needed.
The integration of UNS with FHIR and SDC: complementarity and synergy
It's important to note that UNS isn't intended to replace FHIR or ISO/IEEE 11073 SDC, but to enrich and make them more accessible in a complex and unpredictable world. These standards structure medical information and its exchange between systems, while UNS acts as a dynamic integration layer to take full advantage of them.
Concretely, the UNS would, for example, enable patient risk calculation software, such as those from Moebius Analytics and Diane, to provide a personalized and up-to-date risk score in real time. Previously, if new software were added to the ecosystem, a phase of work and integration with current standards was required. This also allows for better coordination between the various healthcare stakeholders, thus ensuring optimal continuity of care.
In short…
In a world where diseases are evolving rapidly and the volume of scientific information is exploding, it is becoming imperative to ensure that this data reaches doctors quickly and efficiently.
The technologies exist.
Yet one reality persists: technical complexity is no longer the main obstacle. Change management, lack of coordination, and insufficient cross-functional engagement are now holding back project success.
Fortunately, there are proven methods for structuring transformation processes, as well as change support techniques specifically adapted to the hospital world.
Their success, however, depends on one essential condition: the active involvement of facility directors subject to the guidelines of official certifying bodies. It is they who, through their vision, their will, and their financial support, can create the conditions for lasting change, centered on caregivers, patients, and the quality of care.
The question is no longer whether transformation is possible. It is.
So, are you ready to become its architect? A pioneer of the hospital of the future?
Vincent Thavonekham
CEO of FactoVia, connectivity expert (Unified Namespace, UNS)
for Moebius Analytics and ambassador for La French Care
"I warmly thank the doctors who provided
the scientific and medical rereading of this document”