CDISC publishes BRIDG 3.0

A recent issue of the Bimonthly newsletter of XML4Pharma contains some interesting remarks on the recent release by CDISC of BRIDG 3.0 (downloads for this new release can be found here).

One of the things that the author of these remarks likes a lot about this new release is that the strong interweaving with the HL7 RIM has been removed: there is now a separate mapping available between BRIDG and the HL7-RIM. One of his criticisms of BRIDG had always been that it looked as though BRIDG is based on the HL7-RIM. Now he says that "it is very good that this separation has ... been made, as the HL7-RIM is strongly criticized by ontologists to be incorrect from the basis on. Also its XML implementation, HL7-v3-XML is strongly criticized as well by XML specialists ('bad-practice XML', 'abuse of XML') as well as by software architects and developers ('almost impossible to implement, or only at extremely high cost')."

As he goes on: "The current separation also allows mappings to other (and better) RIMs, such as the OpenEHR RIM. In my opinion, the next step for CDISC should be that it comes to alliances at the same level as the one with HL7, with other standardization organizations in healthcare such as ASTM (those who have followed the discussions about CCD versus CCR for EHRs know why) and with OpenEHR – and others."

There are still many problems with BRIDG, deriving from the fact it takes a static view of the clinical trial domain -- a view determined overwhelmingly from the perspective of the regulator. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to use as a basis for clinical trial data capture and analysis. But at least BRIDG is now not subject to the dead hand of the RIM.