Configuration of Input Forms in EHR Systems Using Spreadsheets, openEHR Archetypes and Templates.

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Clinical Data Management
• Interoperability Standards

Background:

• Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems often exhibit variations in data structure and semantics within screen forms.
• These inconsistencies are a primary driver of significant interoperability challenges in healthcare data exchange.
• Existing standardization efforts have not fully resolved these structural and semantic discrepancies across different EHR products.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address EHR interoperability problems caused by structural and semantic data differences in screen forms.
• To present and evaluate a workaround for reusing openEHR archetype and template semantics.
• To configure forms across multiple, insufficiently standardized EHR products in Sweden.

Main Methods:

• Utilized openEHR archetype and template semantics as a common semantic model.
• Configured data capture forms in four distinct EHR products: Cerner Melior, Cerner Millenium, Cambio Cosmic, and CGM TakeCare.
• Exported data from the configured EHRs and performed queries using standardized mechanisms.

Main Results:

• Successfully demonstrated the reuse of openEHR semantics for configuring forms in diverse EHR systems.
• Enabled consistent data capture across different EHR products by applying a standardized semantic layer.
• Facilitated standardized data querying across multiple EHRs after applying the workaround.

Conclusions:

• Reusing openEHR semantics offers a viable workaround to mitigate interoperability issues stemming from EHR form design.
• Standardized semantic models can bridge structural differences in data capture across heterogeneous EHR environments.
• This approach enhances the potential for seamless data exchange and querying in multi-EHR settings.