Get involved!

There are two main ways for you to get involved in the openEHR clinical modelling community:

  1. Register in the Clinical Knowledge Manager (CKM) and participate as a volunteer in the CKM community; or

  2. Join in the openEHR Clinical Discourse discussions.

We recommend both!

If you have any questions then please contact the Clinical program leads: Heather Leslie (Australia) or Silje Ljosland Bakke (Norway)

What is a CKM?

The Clinical Knowledge Manager (CKM) is an online tool to support the work of the openEHR clinical modelling community. It has three main functions:

  1. A public library of openEHR archetypes and templates
  2. An open and transparent Web2.0 collaboration portal 
    1. artefact review and refinement
    2. discussion threads
    3. change requests
    4. proposals for new artefacts
  3. Clinical knowledge governance and maintenance
    1. archetype and templates
      1. content publication life cycle
      2. translation publication life cycle
      3. terminology publication life cycle
      4. artefact versioning
      5. provenance and audit trails
      6. identify dependencies and linkages
    2. manage collaboration using projects and incubators
    3. aggregate artefacts into coherent release sets

Why should you register in a CKM?

The impact of CKM and its ability to publish archetypes and EHR artefacts will only come from the willingness and activity of its registered, volunteer community of users.

Without registering, you can still view all of the CKM content, and download archetypes, but you can't become an active participant.

Anyone can self-register - there is no need for credentialing or approval. The CKM process is deliberately designed to be a trans

As a registered user, you can actively join in all of the CKM activities:

  • watch and adopt archetypes and other knowledge resources;
  • join in review rounds - by recording your domain expertise and a willingness to participate in archetype reviews, the Editors will be able to invite you to participate in projects and teams where your expert opinion will help to enhance the archetypes under review - participate as and when it is convenient for you;
  • initiate or participate in discussions - 'per archetype' or general community;
  • submit change requests;
  • submit translations of archetypes into your language;
  • configure CKM preferences and options; and
  • propose new archetypes for shared use into the CKM.

Which CKM?

There are a number of CKMs to choose from. You can freely join any or all of them, depending on your geographical location or area of interest:

How do I register?

Self-registration is the way to do it.

In the top right hand corner of the home page of each CKM is a ''Register' button.

Click on this and follow the prompts.

If you have any problems, the registration process is explained in more detail here.


Once you are registered...

Register general interest in participating in reviews

By volunteering information about their profession, domain expertise and translations skills, CKM editors can gather together appropriate teams for reviews of archetypes, and eventually templates, terminology subsets and possibly other knowledge artefacts that will contribute to EHR interoperability.

Volunteer to review the clinical content of archetypes - technical knowledge not required; informatics knowledge an asset; and sound clinical knowledge absolutely essential(wink)   

Useful resources:

'Adopt' an archetype

In additon to indicating a general interest to be a CKM reviewer, you are also invited to 'adopt' archetypes, thus expressing a specific interest in this archetype.

Adoptees will be invited to participate in future reviews of the adopted archetype!

One quick way to 'Adopt' an archetype is to right-click on an archetype in the left hand concertina and select "Adopt This Archetype" form the context menu.

View more details on adopting an archetype, including how to manage your currently adopted and watched archetypes.

Add comments to the 'Discussion' around an archetype

A separate discussion space is available for each archetype in CKM. This is designed to enable the discussion about each individual archetype.

Discussions can be for example be about missing elements, or potential technical or design issues.

Editors and other users watching or adopting an archetype with notifications, or users generally receiving all comments, will receive an email to be able to respond quickly to your comment.

Any comments will also inform and feed into future archetype review rounds.

To submit a comment, go to the archetype's or template's own discussion page and start a new discussion topic.

Create a change request for an archetype

Alternatively, if the change to be suggested is very clear, it is also possible to directly create a Change Request for the archetype or template instead of starting a discussion.

To create a new change request, go to the archetype's or template's own Change Requests page and add a new Change Request.

Translate archetypes

Another way to help create an international pool of consistent high-quality archetypes is to translate archetypes into a language you know very well. This way, the content of the archetypes can be ensured to be identical in many languages. A good example of this is the Blood Pressure archetype, which at the time of writing is available in 12 languages already.

Translating archetypes is challenging and requires a good knowledge of both languages and an understanding of the medical terminology used.

Therefore, archetype translations have a publication status on their own and will only be published officially after some peer-review (via CKM review processes).

It is advisable to only start translating an archetype once the archetype has officially been published in CKM. This is to avoid duplication of work and potential inconsistencies.

Propose new archetypes

If you are missing a particular archetype, you can create a new archetype and submit your archetype as a 'Archetype Proposal' to the CKM repository.

Before you start development on new archetypes, we would encourage you to first contact an editor of a CKM project that may be related to your archetype or a Clinical Knowledge Administrator first, just so that we can avoid any duplication of work and frustration.

To submit a proposal for a new archetype, select 'Archetype Proposals' from the main menu or find the 'Propose New Archetype' Quick Task on the new CKM Dashboard.


Support terminology bindingYou can also volunteer as a terminology expert to advise on terminology binding within archetypes.
Become a CKM Archetype EditorOnce you have reviewed archetypes and have become used to the Governance Processes used by CKM as well as our Archetypes, we encourage you to contact the leaders of your CKM to become an Editor.

As a CKM editor, you can start facilitating and moderating archetype reviews for a CKM project of your expertise.

To give you an idea of what is involved, here's an Editorial checklist for facilitating the review of the clinical content of an archetype.