The openEHR Developers' workshop

Shinji KOBAYASHI^a, Pablo Pazos Gutierrez^b, Koray Atalag^c, Sebastian Garde^d, Ian McNicoll^e  (please add your name here)^, Erik Sundvall ^f,g

^_aThe EHR Research Unit, Kyoto University, Japan, ^bCaboLabs, ^cUniversity of Auckland, ^dOcean Informatics, ^eHandiHealth  (please add your affiliation here), ^fLinköping University, ^gRegion Östergötland

Abstract and Objective

The openEHR project is well-known as a set of specifications to build future-proof and semantically interoperable electronic health record systems and is related to the family of ISO 13606 standards . This workshop will discuss implementations of the openEHR specifications with the following contents.

Learning objectives

• What archetypes are and how to operate standardized clinical models to assure semantic interoperability between EHR systems and why healthcare needs a mix of people, process and technology change and the role of the openEHR project.
• The openEHR implementation technologies with various development communities.
• State of the Art of the openEHR specifications
• Current software engineering technologies around the openEHR implementations

Expected outcomes

• Further understanding of the openEHR specification and its implementation technologies
• Evaluation the conformance to the specifications and more features of each technology.
• Sharing experience and passion with speakers and participants.

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This workshop is organized for developers, who are interested in these themes.

• Clinical standards and the implementation.
• State of the arts in EHR development.
• The openEHR specifications and its implementation.
• Open-source software project in medical domain.

Keywords:

openEHR, archetype, open-source software, clinical standard

Workshop description

1.       Overview of the openEHR project

The openEHR project(1)  is well known as a development source for the ISO 13606 standards(2). These standards are considered the technology basis of clinical information models which enable the interoperability for electronic healthcare applications in clinical information modeling initiative (CIMI), the worldwide collaboration(3). A number of projects have been implementing the openEHR specifications with various approaches. Development projects related to the openEHR are spreading worldwide. The core reference implementation has been implemented using Eiffel and is recognized as a reference implementation of the openEHR specifications. Java and C# are also being used in a number of reference implementations. Moreover, the Ruby implementation project is now progressing as a rapid development tool (4). These core implementations are provided as open-source softwares. This momentum provided an evidence that the openEHR specification are being widely accepted and gaining worldwide interest. On this steady international growth, we are taking this opportunity to introduce these specifications to a wider audience and explain their features. Even though these projects are still ongoing and have not yet completed their missions, developers, whether they are involved in openEHR or not, will benefit from the sharing of experiences and  discussions about the implementation of the openEHR specifications.

2 The workshop structure and arguments

This workshop will be consisted with the following contents. At first, we introduce openEHR architectural overview and the second, each speaker make presentation of each project.

2.1 The openEHR architecture overview

The core technology of openEHR specification features a two-level modeling system, named as ‘archetype-based systems’ (5). With regards to this archetype-based technology, technological implementation is clearly isolated from clinical concern and assures future-proof semantic interoperability. In this workshop, we will overview this archetype-based technology.

• What archetype is.
• Why archetypes assures semantic interoperability in future.
• How to implement archetype-based systems.
• Upcoming ADL(ARchetype Definition Language) 2.0 and AOM(Archetype Object Model) 2.0.

2.2 Overview of each implementation project

(Please add description for your projects)

Renovation of regional healthcare inter-exchange system by openEHR technology (Shinji Kobayashi)

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The Clinical Knowledge Manager (CKM) is a system for collaborative development, management, review and publishing of openEHR clinical knowledge resources. It enables the knowledge governance of openEHR archetypes, templates, terminology subsets, artefact release sets, as well as metadata relating to clinical models and related resources. CKM is used internationally by the openEHR foundation as well as in several national programmes.

New archetype and template tools (Erik Sundvall)

An introduction to the new archetype and template tool project intended supporting new features in the archetyping formalism ADL/AOM 2.0 (previously called ADL 1.5). The  open source project targets fundamental parts of a modular editing framework that can be extended for different user needs and different reference models (e.g. CIMI, ISO13606 and openEHR)

HANDI-HOPD - building apps on an openEHR platform (Ian McNicoll)

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Since 2009 we have developed several Clinical Information System projects based on openEHR. We started focusing on R&D, and now reusing that experience (and code) to build a service oriented (REST and SOAP), open source, and general purpose EHR platform to help developers to create shared EHRs that will be standard-compliant from scratch. That platform will support many EMR applications and devices. We are also creating tools to help on the application development itself, providing frameworks, libraries and tools.

2.3 Workshop speakers

• Shinji Kobayashi, MD, PhD - Kyoto University, Japan
• Pablo Pazos, Ingeniero en Computación, openEHR en español, CaboLabs, ACHISA
• Koray Atalag (Deactivated), MD, PhD, FACHI - University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Sebastian Garde, Dr. sc. hum., Dipl.-Inform. Med., FACHI - Ocean Informatics
• Ian McNicoll MBChB,MSc, HandiHealth CIC, UK
• Erik Sundvall, MSc, PhD - Linköping University and Region Östergötland, Sweden

3 Specific Educational Goals

The educational goal of this workshop is not only to learn openEHR technology, but implementation technology of standardized clinical models for semantic interoperability.

4 Expected Attendees

Expected attendees of this workshop are mainly developers who are interested in openEHR archetype technology, implementation of clinical models or open-source software projects in medical domain. The knowledge of the openEHR specification/technology is helpful to understand, but not required.

Because the workshop will present the state-of-the-art of implementation technologies in health care, attendees can learn the cutting edge of EHR system and software technology.

Resources

openehr_developers_workshop2015submit.docx