X400 is just a registered mail delivery service. This is its sole selling
point & the one that everybody in NHS Telecoms keeps going on about. I just
ask them how much mail it's necessary to send by registered or recorded
mail - 1% maybe or less perhaps. SMTP/MIME/S-MIME or whatever internet mail
protocol you choose can deliver the same kind of structured messages, using
cheap (free!) software instead of expensive MS Exchange Server solutions for
X400. To send structured messages you need a database to database standard
(eg EDIFACT or ASTMS) not a person to person standard (X400, smtp, mime
etc...). The key to structure lies in Ewan's "form" not the envelope :-)
>
>X.400 is no more or less able to support a structured message than
>SMTP, any more than a brown envelope is better at carrying a form
>than a white one.
>
>You can put structured (EDIFACT, XML, SGML, ASTM12.38 or whatever)
>or unstructured messages with equal ease in to either an X.400 or
>an SMTP message.
>
>I afraid I share Midges view that these sort of miss-understanding
>are a result of malicious mis-information from those who continue
>to try and prove they are still in a race which everyone knows was
>lost a long time ago. I'm sure it takes a lot to mis-lead someone
>as IT literate and generally well informed as Andrew and this worries me.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>------------------------------
>Ewan Davis
>but it seems to me that one of its strengths is its ability to support
>structured messages - which are needed for lab links, discharge letters,
>transferrable EMRs etc.
>
>MIME and SMTP are not structured (to my uncertain knowledge) so which
>commonly supported internet protocols would allow us to send structured
>messages?
>
>Pardon my ignorance on this, but I have been working at it for a long time.
>
>Andrew
>
>Dr. Andrew N. Herd MRCGP
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Dr Alan Hassey, [log in to unmask] +
+ The Fisher Medical Centre, Skipton +
+ GP Computer Adviser North Yorks HA +
+ RCGP Health Informatics Group & JCG +
+++++++ PGP public key ID: 161BB451 +++++++++
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