Release 1.0.

The openEHR Reference Model

EHR Information Model

Editors: {T Beale, S Heard}a, {D Kalra, D Lloyd}b
Revision: 5.1.1 Pages: 85 Date of issue: 16 Aug 2008
Status: STABLE
a. Ocean Informatics
b. Centre for Health Informatics and Multi-professional Education,
University College London

Keywords: EHR, reference model, openehr

EHR Extract
EHR Demographic Integration Template OM
Composition openEHR Archetype Profile
Security Common Archetype OM ADL
Data Structures
Data Types
Support

© 2003-2008 The openEHR Foundation.

The openEHR Foundation is an independent, non-profit community, facilitating the sharing of
health records by consumers and clinicians via open-source, standards-based implementations.

Founding David Ingram, Professor of Health Informatics,

Chairman CHIME, University College London

Founding Dr P Schloeffel, Dr S Heard, Dr D Kalra, D Lloyd, T Beale

Members

email: [email protected] web: http://www.openEHR.org

 EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

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Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008 Page 2 of 85 Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd}

© 2003-2008 The openEHR Foundation.

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EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

Amendment Record

Issue Details Raiser Completed

R E L E A S E 1.0.2

5.1.1 SPEC-274. Observation should be Evaluation in prob- R Chen 16 Aug 2008

lem/SOAP structure figure.
SPEC-275. Update Entry package design principles in EHR T Beale
IM.
SPEC-253. Clarify explanation of Instruction/Action model in T Beale
EHR IM to indicate state machine per Activity

R E L E A S E 1.0.1

5.1.0 CR-000200. Correct Release 1.0 typographical errors. Correct S Heard 08 Apr 2007
INSTRUCTION_DETAILS.instruction_id type to LOCATABLE_REF. M Forss
Correct inheritance of CONTENT_ITEM to LOCATABLE. C Ma
CR-000201: Add archetype ids to Instruction ACTIVITY class. S Heard
CR-000203: Release 1.0 explanatory text improvements. T Beale
Minor changes to Entry section. Improved section on “time in
the EHR”.
CR-000210: Remove LOCATABLE inheritance from S Heard
ISM_TRANSITION and INSTRUCTION_DETAILS classes
CR-000130: Correct security details in LOCATABLE and ARCHE- T Beale
TYPED classes. Add EHR_ACCESS class.
CR-000218: Add language attribute to COMPOSITION. G Grieve
CR-000219: Use constants instead of literals to refer to termi- R Chen
nology in RM.
CR-000244: Separate LOCATABLE path functions into PATHA- T Beale
BLE class. H Frankel
CR-000246: Correct openEHR terminology rubrics. B Verhees
M Forss

R E L E A S E 1.0

Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd} Page 3 of 85 Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008

© 2003-2008 The openEHR Foundation.

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 EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

Issue Details Raiser Completed

5.0 CR-000014. Adjust History. S Heard 25 Jan 2006
CR-000140. Redevelop Instruction, based on workflow princi- S Heard
ples. T Beale
CR-000147: Make DIRECTORY Re-usable. R Chen
CR-000162. Allow party identifiers when no demographic S Heard
data. Changes to EHR, EVENT_CONTEXT, and ENTRY. T Beale
CR-000164. Improve description of use of times in OBSERVA- S Heard
TION. H Frankel
CR-000174. Add Admin Entry subtype. S Heard
T Beale
CR-000175. Make ENTRY.provider optional S Heard
CR-000177. Make COMPOSITION.content a CONTENT_ITEM. S Heard,
D Kalra
CR-000180. Move EVENT_CONTEXT.composer to COMPOSI- T Beale
TION S Heard
CR-000181: Change ENTRY.provider to PARTY_PROXY. T Beale
CR-000182: Rationalise VERSION.lifecycle_state and ATTESTA- C Ma
TION.status. D Kalra
CR-000187: Correct modelling errors in DIRECTORY class and T Beale
rename.
CR-000188: Add generating_type function to ANY for use in T Beale
invariants
CR-000189. Add LOCATABLE.parent. New invariants in EHR S Heard
and COMPOSITION.
CR-000190. Rename VERSION_REPOSITORY to T Beale
VERSIONED_OBJECT.
CR-000191: Add EHR_STATUS class to EHR package. H Frankel
CR-000194: Correct anomalies with LOCATABLE.uid H Frankel
T Beale
CR-000195: Rename EHR.all_compositions to compositions S Heard
CR-000161. Support distributed versioning. Correct identifier T Beale
types in EHR, ACTION classes. H Frankel

R E L E A S E 0.96

R E L E A S E 0.95

4.5 CR-000108. Minor changes to change_control package. T Beale 10 Dec 2004

CR-000024. Revert meaning to STRING and rename as S Heard,
archetype_node_id. T Beale
CR-000098. EVENT_CONTEXT.time should allow optional end S Heard,
time. DSTC
CR-000109. Add act_status to ENTRY, as in CEN prEN13606. A Goodchild
CR-000116. Add PARTICIPATION.function vocabulary and T Beale
invariant.
CR-000118. Make package names lower case. T Beale
CR-000064. Re-evaluate COMPOSITION.is_persistent attribute. D Kalra
Converted is_persistent to a function; added category attribute.
CR-000102. Make DV_TEXT language and charset optional. DSTC

R E L E A S E 0.9

4.4.1 CR-000096. Allow 0..* SECTIONs as COMPOSITION content. DSTC 11 Mar 2004

Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008 Page 4 of 85 Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd}

© 2003-2008 The openEHR Foundation.

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EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

Issue Details Raiser Completed

4.4 CR-000019. Add HISTORY & STRUCTURE supertype. T Beale 06 Mar 2004
CR-000028. Change name of STRUCTURE class to avoid H Frankel
clashes.
CR-000087. EVENT_CONTEXT.location should be optional. DSTC
CR-000088. Move INSTRUCTION.guideline_id to ENTRY. T Beale,
D Kalra
CR-000092. Improve EVENT_CONTEXT modelling. Rename S Heard
author to composer.
Formally validated using ISE Eiffel 5.4.

4.3.10 CR-000044. Add reverse ref from VERSION_REPOSITORY<T> D Lloyd 25 Feb 2004
to owner object. Add invariants to DIRECTORY and
VERSIONED_COMPOSITION classes.
CR-000046. Rename COORDINATED_TERM and T Beale
DV_CODED_TEXT.definition.

4.3.9 CR-000021. Rename CLINICAL_CONTEXT.practice_setting to A Goodchild 10 Feb 2004

setting.

4.3.8 CR-000057. Environmental information needs to be included T Beale 02 Nov 2003

in the EHR.

4.3.7 CR-000048. Pre-release review of documents. T Beale, 25 Oct 2003

CR-000049. Correct reference types in EHR, DIRECTORY D Lloyd
classes. EHR.contributions, all_compositions, FOLDER.compo-
sitions attributes and invariants corrected.
CR-000050. Update Path syntax reference model to ADL spec-
ification.

4.3.6 CR-000041. Visually differentiate primitive types in openEHR D Lloyd 04 Oct 2003
documents.

4.3.5 CR-000013. Rename key classes, according to CEN ENV S Heard, 15 Sep 2003
13606. D Kalra, T
Beale

4.3.4 CR-000011. Add author attribute to EVENT_CONTEXT. S Heard, 20 Jun 2003

CR-000027. Move feeder_audit to LOCATABLE to be compati- D Kalra
ble with CEN 13606 revision.

4.3.3 CR-000020. Move VERSION.territory to TRANSACTION. A Goodchild 10 Jun 2003

CR-000018. Add DIRECTORY class to RM.EHR Package.
CR-000005. Rename CLINICAL_CONTEXT to EVENT_CONTEXT.

4.3.2 CR-000006. Make ENTRY.provider a PARTICIPATION. S Heard, 11 Apr 2003

CR-000007. Replace ENTRY.subject and subject_relationship T Beale,
with RELATED_PARTY. D Kalra,
CR-000008. Remove confidence and is_exceptional attributes D Lloyd
from ENTRY.
CR-000009. Merge ENTRY protocol and reasoning attributes.

4.3.1 DSTC review - typos corrected. A Goodchild 08 Apr 2003

4.3 CR-000003, CR-000004. Removed ORGANISER_TREE. T Beale, 18 Mar 2003

CLINICAL_CONTEXT and FEEDER_AUDIT inherit from LOCATA- Z Tun,
BLE. Changes to path syntax. Improved definitions of ENTRY A Goodchild
subtypes. Improved instance diagrams. DSTC detailed review.
(Formally validated).

Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd} Page 5 of 85 Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008

© 2003-2008 The openEHR Foundation.

email: [email protected] web: http://www.openEHR.org
 EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

Issue Details Raiser Completed

4.2 Formally validated using ISE Eiffel 5.2. Moved T Beale, 25 Feb 2003
VERSIONED_TRANSACTION class to EHR Package, to corre- A Goodchild
spond better with serialised formalisms like XML.

4.1 Changes post CEN WG meeting Rome Feb 2003. Moved T Beale, 8 Feb 2003
TRANSACTION.version_id postcondition to an invariant. Moved S Heard,
feeder_audit back to TRANSACTION. Added ENTRY.act_id. D Kalra,
VERSION_AUDIT.attestations moved to new ATTESTATIONS class D Lloyd
attached to VERSIONED<T>.

4.0.2 Various corrections and DSTC change requests. Reverted T Beale 3 Feb 2003
OBSERVATION.items:LIST<HISTORY<T>> to data:HISTORY<T>
and EVALUATION.items:LIST<STRUCTURE<T>> to data:STRUC-
TURE<T>. Changed CLINICAL_CONTEXT.other_context to a
STRUCTURE. Added ENTRY.other_participations;
Added CLINICAL_CONTEXT.participations; removed
hcp_legally_responsible (to be archetyped). Replaced
EVENT_TRANSACTION and PERSISTENT_TRANSACTION with
TRANSACTION and a boolean attribute is_persistent.

4.0.1 Detailed corrections to diagrams and class text from DSTC. Z Tun 8 Jan 2003

4.0 Moved HISTORY classes to Data Structures RM. No semantic T Beale 18 Dec 2002
changes.

3.8.2 Corrections on 3.8.1. No semantic changes. D Lloyd 11 Nov 2002

3.8.1 Removed SUB_FOLDER class. Now folder structure can be T Beale, 28 Oct 2002
nested separately archetyped folder structures, same as for D Kalra,
ORGANISERs. Removed AUTHORED_TA and ACQUISITION_TA D Lloyd
classes; simplified versioning. A Goodchild

3.8 Added practice_setting attribute to CLINICAL_CONTEXT, T Beale, 22 Oct 2002

inspired from HL7v3/ANSI CDA standard Release 2.0. S Heard,
Changed DV_PLAIN_TEXT to DV_TEXT. Removed D Kalra,
hca_coauthorising; renamed hca_recording; adjusted all M Darlison
instances of *_ID; converted CLINICAL_CONTEXT.start_time,
end_time to an interval.

3.7 Removed Spatial package to Common RM document. T Beale 22 Sep 2002

Renamed ACTION back to ACTION_SPECIFICATION. Removed
the class NAVIGABLE_STRUCTURE. Renamed SPATIAL to STRUC-
TURE. Removed classes STATE_HISTORY, STATE,
SINGLE_STATE. Removed Communication (EHR_EXTRACT)
section to ow document.

3.6 Removed Common and Demographic packages to their own T Beale 28 Aug 2002
documents.

3.5.1 Altered syntax of EXTERNAL_ID identifiers. T Beale, 20 Aug 2002

Z Tun

3.5 Rewrote Demographic and Ehr_extract packages. T Beale 18 Aug 2002

3.3.1 Simplified EHR_EXTRACT model, numerous small changes T Beale, 15 Aug 2002
from DSTC review. Z Tun

Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008 Page 6 of 85 Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd}

© 2003-2008 The openEHR Foundation.

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EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

Issue Details Raiser Completed

3.3 Rewrite of contributions, version control semantics. T Beale, D 1 Aug 2002
Lloyd,
D Kalra,
S Heard

3.2 DSTC comments. Various minor errors/omissions. Changed T Beale, 25 Jun 2002
inheritance of SINGLE_EVENT and SINGLE_STATE. Z Tun
Included STRUCTURE subtype methods from GEHR. ehr_id
added to VT. Altered EHR/FOLDER attrs. Added
EXTERNAL_ID.version.

3.1.1 Minor corrections. T Beale 20 May 2002

3.1 Reworking of Structure section, Action class, Instruction class. T Beale, 16 May 2002
S Heard

3.0 Plans, actions updated. T Beale, 10 May 2002

S Heard

2.9 Additions from HL7v3 coded term model, alterations to quan- T Beale 5 May 2002
tity model, added explanation sections.

2.8.2a Interim version with various review modifications T Beale 28 Apr 2002

2.8.2 Error corrections to EHR_EXTRACT package. P Schloeffel T Beale, 25 Apr 2002

comments on 2.7. P Schloeffel

2.8.1 Further minor changes from UCL on v2.7. T Beale 24 Apr 2002

2.8 Dipak Kalra (UCL) comments on v2.6 incorporated. Added T Beale, 23 Apr 2002
External Package. Minor changes elsewhere. D Kalra

2.7 Final development of initial draft, including EHR_EXTRACT, T Beale 20 Apr 2002
related models

2.6 Further development of path syntax, incorporation of Dipak T Beale, 15 Apr 2002
Kalra’s comments D Kalra

2.5 Further development of clinical and record management clus- T Beale 10 Apr 2002
ters.

2.4 Included David Lloyd’s rev 2.3 comments. T Beale, 4 Apr 2002
D Lloyd

2.3 Improved context analysis. T Beale 4 Mar 2002

2.2 Added path syntax. T Beale 19 Nov 2001

2.1 Minor organisational changes, some content additions. T Beale 18 Nov 2001

2.0 Rewrite of large sections post-Eurorec 2001 conference, Aix- T Beale 15 Nov 2001
en-Provence. Added folder, contribution concepts.

1.2 Major additions to introduction, design philosophy T Beale 1 Nov 2001

1.1 Major changes to diagrams; STILL UNREVIEWED T Beale 13 Oct 2001

1.0 Based on GEHR Object Model T Beale 22 Sep 2001

Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd} Page 7 of 85 Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008

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 EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

Acknowledgements
The work reported in this paper has been funded in by a number of organisations, including Univer-
sity College, London; The Cooperative Research Centres Program through the Department of the
Prime Minister and Cabinet of the Commonwealth Government of Australia; Ocean Informatics,
Australia.
Andrew Goodchild, senior research scientist at the Distributed Systems Technology Centre, Brisbane
provided valuable in-depth comments and insights on all aspects of the model during its early devel-
opment.
CORBA is a trademark of the Object Management Group
.Net is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation

Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008 Page 8 of 85 Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd}

© 2003-2008 The openEHR Foundation.

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EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

1 Introduction............................................................................ 12
1.1 Purpose.................................................................................................12
1.2 Related Documents ..............................................................................12
1.3 Status....................................................................................................12
1.4 Peer review ..........................................................................................12
1.5 Conformance........................................................................................13
2 Background ............................................................................ 15
2.1 Requirements .......................................................................................15
2.1.1 Original GEHR Requirements.......................................................15
2.1.2 GEHR Australia Requirements......................................................15
2.1.3 European Synapses and SynEx Project Requirements ..................15
2.1.4 European EHCR Support Action Requirements............................16
2.1.5 ISO EHR Requirements.................................................................16
2.1.6 openEHR Requirements ................................................................16
2.2 Relationship to other Health Information Models ...............................16
2.2.1 CEN TC/251 prEN13606 ..............................................................16
2.2.2 HL7 Version 3................................................................................17
2.2.3 OMG HDTF...................................................................................17
3 The EHR Information Model ............................................... 18
3.1 Overview..............................................................................................18
4 EHR Package.......................................................................... 20
4.1 Overview..............................................................................................20
4.2 The Parts of the EHR ...........................................................................21
4.2.1 Root EHR Object...........................................................................21
4.2.2 EHR Access ...................................................................................21
4.2.3 EHR Status.....................................................................................22
4.2.4 Compositions .................................................................................22
4.2.5 Directory ........................................................................................24
4.3 Change Control in the EHR .................................................................25
4.3.1 Versioning of Compositions ..........................................................27
4.3.2 Versioning Scenarios .....................................................................27
4.4 EHR Creation Semantics .....................................................................28
4.4.1 EHR Identifier Allocation..............................................................28
4.4.2 Creation..........................................................................................28
4.5 Time in the EHR ..................................................................................29
4.6 Historical Views of the Record ............................................................30
4.7 Class Descriptions................................................................................31
4.7.1 EHR Class......................................................................................31
4.7.2 VERSIONED_EHR_ACCESS Class............................................32
4.7.3 EHR_ACCESS Class ....................................................................32
4.7.4 VERSIONED_EHR_STATUS Class.............................................33
4.7.5 EHR_STATUS Class .....................................................................33
4.7.6 VERSIONED_COMPOSITION Class..........................................34
5 Composition Package ............................................................ 35
5.1 Overview..............................................................................................35
5.2 Context Model of Recording ...............................................................35

Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd} Page 9 of 85 Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008

© 2003-2007 The openEHR Foundation.

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 EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

5.2.1 Overview ....................................................................................... 35

5.2.2 Composer ...................................................................................... 36
5.2.3 Event Context................................................................................ 36
5.3 Composition Content........................................................................... 39
5.4 Class Descriptions ............................................................................... 40
5.4.1 COMPOSITION Class.................................................................. 40
5.4.2 EVENT_CONTEXT Class ........................................................... 41
6 Content Package .................................................................... 43
6.1 Overview ............................................................................................. 43
6.2 Class Descriptions ............................................................................... 43
6.2.1 CONTENT_ITEM Class............................................................... 43
7 Navigation Package................................................................ 44
7.1 Overview ............................................................................................. 44
7.2 Class Descriptions ............................................................................... 45
7.2.1 SECTION Class ............................................................................ 45
7.3 Section Instance Structures.................................................................. 46
7.3.1 Problem/SOAP Headings.............................................................. 46
8 Entry Package ........................................................................ 48
8.1 Design Principles................................................................................. 48
8.1.1 Information Ontology.................................................................... 48
8.1.2 Clinical Statement Status and Negation ........................................ 50
8.1.3 Standard Clinical Types of Data.................................................... 50
8.1.4 Demographic Data in the EHR...................................................... 51
8.2 Entry and its Subtypes ......................................................................... 52
8.2.1 The Entry class .............................................................................. 52
8.2.2 Care_entry and Admin_entry ........................................................ 54
8.2.3 Observation ................................................................................... 55
8.2.4 Evaluation...................................................................................... 57
8.2.5 Instruction and Action................................................................... 59
8.2.6 Clinical Workflow Definition........................................................ 66
8.3 Class Descriptions ............................................................................... 68
8.3.1 ENTRY Class ................................................................................ 68
8.3.2 ADMIN_ENTRY Class................................................................. 70
8.3.3 CARE_ENTRY Class ................................................................... 70
8.3.4 OBSERVATION Class .................................................................. 71
8.3.5 EVALUATION Class .................................................................... 71
8.3.6 INSTRUCTION Class................................................................... 72
8.3.7 ACTIVITY Class .......................................................................... 73
8.3.8 ACTION Class .............................................................................. 73
8.3.9 INSTRUCTION_DETAILS Class ................................................ 74
8.3.10 ISM_TRANSITION Class ............................................................ 74
8.4 Instance Structures............................................................................... 75
8.4.1 OBSERVATION ............................................................................ 75
8.4.2 EVALUATION.............................................................................. 76
8.4.3 INSTRUCTION ............................................................................ 78
A Glossary .................................................................................. 80

Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008 Page 10 of 85 Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd}

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EHR Information Model
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A.1 openEHR Terms...................................................................................80

A.2 Clinical Terms......................................................................................80
A.3 IT Terms...............................................................................................80
B References............................................................................... 81
B.1 General.................................................................................................81
B.2 European Projects ................................................................................82
B.3 CEN .....................................................................................................82
B.4 GEHR Australia ...................................................................................83
B.5 HL7v3 ..................................................................................................83
B.6 OMG ....................................................................................................83
B.7 Software Engineering ..........................................................................83
B.8 Resources .............................................................................................84

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Introduction EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

1 Introduction

1.1 Purpose
This document describes the openEHR EHR Information Model, which is a model of an interoperable
EHR in the ISO RM/ODP information viewpoint. This model defines a logical EHR information
architecture rather than just an architecture for communication of EHR extracts or documents
between EHR systems. The openEHR definition of the EHR Extract is given in the openEHR
EHR_EXTRACT Information Model.
The intended audience includes:
• Standards bodies producing health informatics standards
• Software development groups using openEHR
• Academic groups using openEHR
• The open source healthcare community

1.2 Related Documents

Prerequisite documents for reading this document include:
• The openEHR Architecture Overview
• The openEHR Modelling Guide
• The openEHR Support Information Model
• The openEHR Data Types Information Model
• The openEHR Common Information Model
Other documents describing related models, include:
• The openEHR EHR_EXTRACT Information Model
• The openEHR Demographic Information Model

1.3 Status
This document is under development, and is published as a proposal for input to standards processes
and implementation works.
This document is available at http://svn.openehr.org/specification/TAGS/Release-
1.0.1/publishing/architecture/rm/ehr_im.pdf.
The latest version of this document can be found at http://svn.openehr.org/specifica-
tion/TRUNK/publishing/architecture/rm/ehr_im.pdf.
Blue text indicates sections under active development.

1.4 Peer review

Areas where more analysis or explanation is required are indicated with “to be continued” paragraphs
like the following:
To Be Continued: more work required

Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008 Page 12 of 85 Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd}

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EHR Information Model Introduction
Rev 5.1.1

Reviewers are encouraged to comment on and/or advise on these paragraphs as well as the main con-
tent. Please send requests for information to [email protected]. Feedback should preferably be
provided on the mailing list [email protected], or by private email.

1.5 Conformance
Conformance of a data or software artifact to an openEHR Reference Model specification is deter-
mined by a formal test of that artifact against the relevant openEHR Implementation Technology
Specification(s) (ITSs), such as an IDL interface or an XML-schema. Since ITSs are formal, auto-
mated derivations from the Reference Model, ITS conformance indicates RM conformance.

Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd} Page 13 of 85 Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008

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Introduction EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008 Page 14 of 85 Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd}

© 2003-2007 The openEHR Foundation.

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EHR Information Model Background
Rev 5.1.1

2 Background
This section describes the inputs to the modelling process that created the openEHR Information
Model.

2.1 Requirements
There are broadly three sets of requirements which inform this model, as described in the following
subsections.

2.1.1 Original GEHR Requirements

From the European GEHR project (1992-5; [20]), the following broad requirements areas were iden-
tified:
• the life-long EHR;
• priority: Clinician / Patient interaction;
• medico-legal faithfulness, traceability, audit-trailing;
• technology & data format independent;
• facilitate sharing of EHRs;
• suitable for both primary & acute care;
• secondary uses: education, research, population medicine;
• open standard & software deliverables;
The original deliverables can be reviewed in detail at the GEHR page at CHIME, UCL.

2.1.2 GEHR Australia Requirements

The GEHR Australia project (1997-2001; [33], [34]) introduced further requirements, including:
• support for clinical data structures: lists, tables, time-series etc;
• safer information model than the original (European) GEHR: context attributes only in valid
places (but still similar style);
• separate groups for “persistent”, “demographic” and “event” information in EHR, which
corresponds closely to real clinical querying patterns;
• introduction of formally specified archetypes, and archetype-enabled information model;
• interoperability at the knowledge level, i.e. level of domain definitions of information such
as “discharge summary” and “biochemistry result”;
• XML-enabled;
• consider compatibility with CEN 13606, Corbamed, HL7v3.
GEHR Australia produced a proof of concept implementation in which clinical archetypes were
developed and used. See [3] for a technical description of archetypes.

2.1.3 European Synapses and SynEx Project Requirements

Following the original Good European Health Record project the EU-funded Synapses (1996-8; [26])
and SynEx (1998-2000; [14]) projects extended the original requirements basis of GEHR to include
further requirements, as follows:
• the requirements of a federation approach to unifying disparate clinical databases and EPR
systems: the federated health record (FHR) [27];

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Background EHR Information Model
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• the need to separate a generic and domain independent high-level model for the federated
health record from the (closely related) model of the meta-data which defines the domain
specific health record characteristics of any given clinical specialty and any given federation
of database schemata;
• a formalism to define and communicate (share) knowledge about the semantic hierarchical
organisation of an FHR, the permitted data values associated with each leaf node in a record
hierarchy and any constraints on values that leaf nodes may take (the Synapses Object Dic-
tionary) [28];
• the core technical requirements of and interfaces for a federation middleware service [26].

2.1.4 European EHCR Support Action Requirements

This EU Support Action project (“SupA”; [18], [19], [21]) consolidated the requirements published
by a wide range of European projects and national health informatics organisations as a Consolidated
List of Requirements [17].

2.1.5 ISO EHR Requirements

The above requirements publications and the recent experience of openEHR feed into the definition
of a set of EHR requirements authored by ISO Technical Committee 215 (Health Informatics) - ISO
TS 18308. The present draft [13] has been reviewed by the authors of this document and openEHR
will seek to maintain a close mapping between its information models and services and this interna-
tional requirements work. The openEHR mapping to ISO 18308 can be found on the openEHR web-
site.

2.1.6 openEHR Requirements

New requirements generated during the development of openEHR included the following:
• major improvements in information models from the point of view of reducing progammer
errors and ambiguity;
• better modelling of time and context (temporal/spatial approach);
• better understanding of legacy system / federation problem;
• workflow modelling;
• harmonise with CEN EN 13606;
• integration with HL7v2 and other messaging systems;
• numerous specific clinical requirements.

2.2 Relationship to other Health Information Models

Where relevant, the correspondences to other information models have been documented in this spec-
ification. Correspondences to the GEHR Australia and EU Synapses/SynEx models are shown, since
these are the models on which the openEHR EHR information model is primarily based. The follow-
ing sections summarise the other models and standards with which correspondences are shown.

2.2.1 CEN TC/251 prEN13606

These models have been influenced by and have also influenced the models in CEN prEN13606
(2005 revision); accordingly, relationships to 13606 have been documented fairly precisely.
Since January 2002, the prEN13606 prestandard has been the subject of significant revision, as part
of its transition to a full European Standard (“EN”). This work has been influenced by the openEHR

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 EHR Information Model Background
Rev 5.1.1

specifications, and has itself been a source of further insights and changes to the openEHR specifica-
tions. Particular areas of openEHR which have been changed due to this process include:
• change of major class names (TRANSACTION -> COMPOSITION etc; see CR-000013);
• improved model of ATTESTATION (see CR-000025);
• improved model of feeder audits (see CR-000027).
Implementation experience with Release 0.9 and 0.95 of openEHR has further improved these areas
significantly. Nevertheless, openEHR is not a copy of CEN, for two reasons. Firstly, its scope
includes systems, while EN13606 defines an EHR Extract; secondly, EN13606 suffers somewhat
from “design by committee”, and has no formal validation mechanism for its models.

2.2.2 HL7 Version 3

Correspondences to some parts of HL7 version 3 (ballot 5, July 2003) are also documented where
possible, however, it should be understood that there are a number of difficulties with this. Firstly,
while the HL7v3 Reference Information Model (RIM) - the closest HL7 artifact to an information
model - provides similar data types and some related semantics, it is not intended to be a model of the
EHR. In fact, it differs from the information model presented here (and for that matter most published
information models) in two basic respects: a) it is an amalgam of semantics from many systems
which would exist in a distributed health information environment, rather than a model of just one
(the EHR); b) it is also not a model of data, but a combination of “analysis patterns” in the sense of
Fowler [44] from which further specific models - subschemas - are developed by a custom process of
“refinement by restriction”, in order to arrive at message definitions. As a consequence, data in mes-
sages are not instances of HL7v3 RIM classes, as would be the case in other systems based on infor-
mation models of the kind presented here.
Despite the differences, there are some areas that appear to be candidates for mapping, specifically
the data types and terminology use, and the correspondence between openEHR Compositions and
parts of the HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA).

2.2.3 OMG HDTF

In general, the openEHR information models represent a more recent analysis of the required seman-
tics of EHR and related information than can be found in the information viewpoint of the OMG
HDTF specifications (particularly PIDS and COAS). However, the computational viewpoint (i.e.
functional service interface definitions) is one of the inputs to the openEHR srevice model develp-
ment activity.

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The EHR Information Model EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

3 The EHR Information Model

3.1 Overview
FIGURE 1 illustrates the package structure of the openEHR EHR information model.

composition

content
ehr
navigation entry

FIGURE 1 ehr Package Structure

The packages are as follows:

ehr: This package contains the top level structure, the EHR, which consists of an EHR_ACCESS
object, an EHR_STATUS object, versioned data containers in the form of
VERSIONED_COMPOSITIONs, optionally indexed by a hierarchical directory of FOLDERs.
A collection of CONTRIBUTIONs which document the changes to the EHR over time is also
included.
composition: The Composition is the EHR’s top level “data container”, and is described by
the COMPOSITION class.
content: This package contains the Navigation and Entry packages, whose classes describe
the structure and semantics of the contents of Compositions in the health record.
navigation: The SECTION class provides a navigational structure to the record, sim-
ilar to “headings” in the paper record. ENTRYs and other SECTIONs can appear
under SECTIONs.
entry: This package contains the generic structures for recording clinical statements.
Entry types include ADMIN_ENTRY, OBSERVATION (for all observed phenomena,
including mechanically or manually measured, and responses in interview),
EVALUATION (for assessments, diagnoses, plans), INSTRUCTION (actionable
statements such as medication orders, recalls, monitoring, reviews), and ACTION
(information recorded as a result of performing Instructions).
FIGURE 2 illustrates an overview of the class structure of the EHR Information Model, along with
the main concepts on which they rely, namely Data Types, Data Structures, Archetyped, and Identifi-
cation.

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 archetyped

PATHABLE

LINK * LOCATABLE * ARCHETYPED

archetype_
links
details

ehr composition
versions
ehr_access VERSIONED_ EHR_ACCESS
1..* content
EHR_ACCESS versions
0..* VERSIONED_ content
COMPOSITION CONTENT_ITEM
EHR compositions COMPOSITION 1..* *
items
audit context navigation entry
ehr_status ENTRY
AUDIT_DETAILS EVENT_CONTEXT
SECTION
versions
VERSIONED_ ADMIN_ENTRY CARE_ENTRY
EHR_STATUS EHR_STATUS
1..*

INSTRUCTION
directory
ACTION
directory versions 0..* folders EVALUATION
VERSIONED_
FOLDER 1..* FOLDER OBSERVATION

data_structure
data_type
DATA_STRUCTURE
DATA_VALUE

HISTORY ITEM_STRUCTURE

FIGURE 2 openEHR EHR Information Model Overview

EHR Package EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

4 EHR Package

4.1 Overview
The openEHR EHR is structured according to a relatively simple model. A central EHR object identi-
fied by an EHR id specifies references to a number of types of structured, versioned information, plus
a list of Contribution objects that act as audits of change-sets made to the EHR. The high-level struc-
ture of the openEHR EHR is shown in FIGURE 3.

EHR Access

? EHR Status

EHR
Ehr_id Directory

Contributions

Compositions

FIGURE 3 High-level Structure of the openEHR EHR

In this figure, the parts of the EHR are as follows:

• EHR: the root object, identified by a globally unique EHR identifier;
• EHR_access (versioned): an object containing access control settings for the record;
• EHR_status (versioned): an object containing various status and control information,
optionally including the identifier of the subject (i.e. patient) currently associated with the
record;
• Directory (versioned): an optional hierarchical structure of Folders that can be used to logi-
cally organise Compositions;
• Compositions (versioned): the containers of all clinical and administrative content of the
record;
• Contributions: the change-set records for every change made to the health record; each Con-
tribution references a set of one or more Versions of any of the versioned items in the record
that were committed or attested together by a user to an EHR system.
The ehr package is illustrated in FIGURE 4. The classes have a more or less one-to-one correspond-
ence with the objects shown in FIGURE 3. Each versioned object of type XXX is defined by a class
VERSIONED_XXX, which is a binding of the type XXX to the generic type paremeter T in the generic
type VERSIONED_COMPOSITION (while such bindings do not strictly require classes of their own,
they facilitate implementation in languages lacking genericity).

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EHR Information Model EHR Package
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VERSIONED_OBJECT<T> LOCATABLE
(rm.common.change_control) (rm.common.archetyped)

ehr
<<binding>>
<EHR_ACCESS> EHR_ACCESS
settings[1]:
VERSIONED_EHR_ ACCESS_CONTROL_
ACCESS SETTINGS
scheme[1]: String
EHR
system_id[1]: String
<<binding>>
<EHR_STATUS>
ehr_id[1]: HIER_OBJECT_ID EHR_STATUS
time_created[1]: DV_DATE_TIME
VERSIONED_EHR_ subject[1]: PARTY_SELF
ehr_access[1]: OBJECT_REF
STATUS is_queryable[1]: Boolean
ehr_status[1]: OBJECT_REF
is_modifiable[1]: Boolean
compositions[1]: List<OBJECT_REF>
other_details[0..1]:
directory[0..1]: OBJECT_REF
<<binding>> ITEM_STRUCTURE
contributions[1]: List<OBJECT_REF>
<COMPOSITION>
VERSIONED_COMPOSITION

is_persistent: Boolean

logical targets
of OBJECT_REFs
CONTRIBUTION VERSIONED_FOLDER
(rm.common.change_control) (rm.common.directory)

FIGURE 4 rm.ehr Package

4.2 The Parts of the EHR

4.2.1 Root EHR Object
The root EHR object records three pieces of information that are immutable after creation: the identi-
fier of the system in which the EHR was created, the identifier of the EHR (distinct from any identi-
fier for the subject of care), and the time of creation of the EHR. Otherwise, it simply acts as an access
point for the component parts of the EHR.
References rather than containment by value are used for the relationship between the EHR and
VERSIONED_XXX objects, reflecting the vast majority of retrieval scenarios in which only selected
(usually recent) items are needed. Containment by value would lead to systems which retrieved all
VERSIONED_XXX objects every time the EHR object was accessed.

4.2.2 EHR Access

Access control settings for the whole EHR are specified in the EHR_ACCESS object. This includes
default privacy policy, lists of identified accessors (individuals and groups) and exceptions to the
default policies, each one identifying a particular Composition in the EHR. All changes to the EHR
Access object are versioned via the normal mechanism, ensuring that the visible view of the EHR at
any previous point in time is reconstructable.

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Because security models for health information are still in their infancy, the openEHR model adopts a
completely flexible approach. Only two hard-wired attributes are defined in the EHR_ACCESS class.
The first is the name of the security scheme currently in use, while the second (settings attribute) is an
object containing the access settings for the EHR according to that particular scheme. Each scheme is
defined by an instance of a subclass of the abstract class ACCESS_CONTROL_SETTINGS, defined in
the Security Information Model.

4.2.3 EHR Status

The EHR_STATUS object contains a small number of hard-wired attributes, and an archetyped
‘other_details’ part. The former are used to indicate who is (currently understood to be) the subject of
the record, and whether the EHR is actively in use, inactive, and whether it should be considered que-
ryable. As for elsewhere in the openEHR EHR, the subject is represented by a PARTY_SELF object,
enabling it to be made completely anonymous, or alternatively to include a patient identifier. The sub-
ject is included in the EHR Status object because it can change, due to errors being discovered in the
allocation of records to patients. If the anonymous form is used, the change will be made elsewhere in
a cross-reference table; otherwise the EHR Status object will be updated. Because it is versioned, all
such changes are audit-trailed, and the change history can be reconstructed.
Other EHR-wide meta-data may be recorded in the archetyped part of this object, including runtime
environment settings, software application names and version ids, identification and versions of data
resources such as terminologies and possibly even actual software tools, configuration files, keys and
so on. Such information is commonly versioned in software configuration management systems, in
order to enable the reconstruction of earlier versions of software with the correct tools. One reason to
store such information at all is that it adds to medico-legal support when clinicians have to justify a
seemingly bad decision: if it can be shown that the version of software in use at the time was faulty,
they are protected, but to do this requires that such information be recorded in the first place.

4.2.4 Compositions
The main data of the EHR is found in its Compositions. The Composition concept in the openEHR
EHR originated from the Transaction concept of the GEHR project [22], [23], [24], [25], which was
based on the concept of a unit of information corresponding to the interaction of a healthcare agent
with the EHR. It was originally designed to satisfy the following needs (which include the well-
known ACID characteristics of transactions [8]):
• durability: the need for a persistent unit of information committal in the record;
• atomicity: the need for a minimal unit of integrity for clinical information, corresponding to
a minimal unit for committal, transmission and security;
• consistency: the need for contributions to the record to leave the record in a consistent state;
• isolation: the need for contributions to the record by simultaneous users not to interfere with
each other;
• indelibility: the requirement that information committed to the record be indelible in order to
support later investigations, for both medico-legal and process improvement purposes, and
the consequent requirement to be able to access previous states of the record;
• modification: the need for users to be able to modify EHR contents, in order to correct errors
or update previously recorded information (e.g. current medications, family history); and
• traceability: the need to record adequate auditing information at committal, in order to pro-
vide clinical and legal traceability.

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EHR Information Model EHR Package
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The Transaction concept was later been renamed to “Composition”, which is the name of the equiva-
lent concept in the current CEN EN13606, and it has been expanded and more formally defined in
openEHR in two ways. Firstly, the idea of a unit of committal has been formalised by the openEHR
model of change control (see the openEHR Common Information Model); how this applies to the
EHR and compositions is described below. Secondly, the informational purpose of a Composition is
no longer just to contain data from a passing clinical event such as a patient contact, but also to cap-
ture particular categories of clinical data which have long-lived significance, such as problem and
medication lists.
Experience with health information systems, including the GEHR (Australia) project, SynEx, Syn-
apses, and inspection of common commercial systems, has shown that there are two general catego-
ries of information at the coarse level which are found in an EHR: event items, and longitudinal, or
persistent items, of which there are various kinds.
Event Compositions
Events record what happens during healthcare system events with or for the patient, such as patient
contacts, but also sessions in which the patient is not a participant (e.g. surgery) or not present (e.g.
pathology testing). FIGURE 5 illustrates a simple EHR comprising an accumulation of event Compo-
sitions.

visit test results admission contact radiology surgery review

1/4/1999 1/2/2000 22/11/2000 22/11/2000 22/11/2000 24/11/2000 25/11/2000

FIGURE 5 Basic Event-oriented EHR

An important job of the event Composition is to record not only the data from the healthcare event,
such as observations on the patient, but also to record the event context information, i.e. the who,
when, where and why of the event. For this reason, a specific class representing clinical context is
associated with event compositions in the formal model.
Persistent Compositions
In a more sophisticated EHR, there is also a need to record items of long-term interest in the record.
These are often separated by clinicians into well-known categories, such as:
• Problem list
• Current medications
• Therapeutic precautions
• Vaccination history
• Patient preferences
• Lifestyle
• Family history
• Social history
• Care plan
Persistent Compositions can be thought of as proxies for the state or situation of the patient - together
they provide a picture of the patient at a point in time. For example, the meaning of the “medication
list” Composition is always: this is the list of medications currently being taken by patient X. Simi-
larly for the other persistent Composition types given above. In scientific philosophy, the kind of
information recorded in a persistent Composition is known as a continuant (see e.g. the KR ontology

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EHR Package EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

in Sowa [12]). This is in contrast with event Compositions, which do not generally record continu-
ants, but instead record occurrents, i.e. things that were true or did happen but have no longevity.
Over time, the number of event Compositions is likely to far outstrip the number of persistent Com-
positions. FIGURE 6 illustrates an EHR containing persistent information as well as event informa-
tion.

problem family current therapeutic social

list history medications precautions history

visit test results admission contact radiology surgery review

1/4/1999 1/2/2000 22/11/2000 22/11/2000 22/11/2000 24/11/2000 25/11/2000

FIGURE 6 An EHR containing Event and Persistent Compositions

In any clinical session, an event composition will be created, and in many cases, persistent composi-
tions will be modified. How this works is described below under Change Control in the EHR on page
25.

4.2.5 Directory
As Compositions accumulate over time in the EHR, they form a long-term patient history. An
optional directory structure can be used in the EHR to organise Compositions using a hierarchy of
Folders in much the same way files in a file system are visualised by the directory Explorer tool on
Windows and other platforms. In the openEHR model, Folders do not contain Compositions by value
but by reference. More than one Folder can refer to the same Composition. Folders might be used to
manage a simple classification of Compositions, e.g into event and persistent, or they might be used
to create numerous categories, based on episodes or other groupings of Compositions. Folder struc-
tures can be archetyped.
A simple structure showing Folders referencing Compositions is shown in FIGURE 7, in which the
following folders are used:
Subject: a composition containing clinically relevant demographic data of the patient;
Persistent: compositions containing information which is valid in the long term;
Event: compositions containing information whose currency is limited to the short term after the
time of committal;
Episode_xxx: rather than using a single ‘event’ folder, it may be convenient to group event
compositions into episodes (periods of treatment at a health care facility relating to one or
more identified problems) and/or other categories such as on the basis of type of healthcare
(orthodox, homeopathic, etc).
A justification for these particular categories is based on patterns of access. The persistent category
consists of a dozen or so compositions described above, and which are continually required by query-
ing (particularly lifestyle, current problems and medications). The event category consists of clinical
data whose relevancy fades fairly quickly, including most measurements made on the patients or in
pathology. Compositions in this category are thus potentially very numerous over the patient’s life-
time, but of decreasing relevance to the clinical care of the patient in time; it therefore makes sense to
separate them from the persistent compositions.
Regardless of the folder structure used, the folder concept in itself poses no restrictions, nor does it
add any clinical meaning to the record - it simply provides a logical navigational structure to the

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EHR Information Model EHR Package
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(root)

subject

subject
details
persistent

problem family current therapeutic social

list history medications precautions history
event

visit test results admission contact radiology surgery

1/4/1999 1/2/2000 22/11/2000 22/11/2000 22/11/2000 24/11/2000

review review discharge contact

24/11/2000 25/11/2000 26/11/2000 16/apr/2001
episode
22/nov/2000-
26/nov/2002

FIGURE 7 Using Folders to Group Compositions

“lumps” of information committed to the record (remembering that inside compositions, there are
other means of providing fine-grained structure in entries).
Note that neither the Folder names nor the Composition names described and illustrated above are
part of the openEHR EHR reference model: all such details are provided by archetypes; hence, EHR
structures based on completely different conceptions of division of information, or even different
types of medicine are equally possible.
The EHR directory is maintained in its own versioned object, ensuring that changes to the classifica-
tion structure of the Compositions are versioned over time in the same way as changes to the EHR
content.

4.3 Change Control in the EHR

Given an EHR in which there is an EHR Access object, EHR Status object, Event and Persistent
Compositions, and possibly a directory structure, the general model of update of the EHR is that any
of these might be created and/or modified during an update. The simplest, most common case is the
creation of a single contact Composition. Another common case will be the creation of an Event
Composition, and modification of one or more Persistent Compositions, e.g. due to facts learned in
the consultation about family history, or due to prescription of new medications. Other types of
updates include corrections to existing Compositions, and acquisition of Compositions from another
site such as a hospital. Any of these updates might also include a change to the folder structure, or the
moving of existing Compositions to other Folders. Naturally these scenarios depend on a structure of
the record including event and persistent compositions, and a folder structure. In the extreme, an EHR
consisting only of event Compositions and no Folders will experience only the creation of a single

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EHR Package EHR Information Model
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Composition for most updates, with acquisitions being the exception. Less often, updates will be
made to the EHR Access and EHR Status objects, according to the management and access control
needs of the patient and health care providers.
In general, the following requirements must always be met, regardless of the particular changes made
at any one time:
• the record should always be in a consistent informational state;
• all changes to the record be audit-trailed;
• all previous states of the record be available for the purposes of medico-legal investigation.
These requirements are satisfied in openEHR via the use of the change control and versioning facili-
ties defined in the Common Information Model. A key facet of the approach is the use of change-sets,
known as Contributions in openEHR. Applied to the EHR, they can be visualised as shown in FIG-
URE 8:
problem family care directory EHR sts
xxxx = COMPOSITION list history plan

U U

Contribution contact problem care

(event) 1/4/1999 list ’ plan ’

Contribution test results

(acquisition) 1/2/2000
U U U

contact family care folders

Contribution
(event) 12/3/2001 history ’ plan ’’
time

Contribution contact ’
(correction) 1/4/1999
U

Contribution EHR sts

(s/w upgr.)

FIGURE 8 Contributions to the EHR

• The first is due to a patient contact, and causes the creation of a new contact composition; it
also causes changes to the problem list, current medications and care plan compositions
(once again, in a differently designed record, all this information might have been contained
in a single event Composition; likewise, it might be been distributed into even more Compo-
sitions).
• The next Contribution is the acquisition of test results from a pathology laboratory.
• The third is another contact in which both family history and the folder structure are modi-
fied.

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• This fourth is an error correction (e.g. a mispelled name, wrongly entered value), and shows
that there can be a Contribution even when there is no healthcare event.
• The last is an update to the EHR status information in the EHR, due to a software upgrade.
The list of Contributions made to a record is recorded along with changes to the data, so that not only
are changes to top-level objects (EHR Acces, Composition etc) captured, but the list of changes form-
ing a change set due to a user commit is always known as well.

4.3.1 Versioning of Compositions

Versioning of Compositions is achieved with the VERSIONED_OBJECT<T> type from the
change_control package (Common IM), which in the composition package is explicitly bound
to the COMPOSITION class, via the class VERSIONED_COMPOSITION which inherits from the type
VERSIONED<COMPOSITION>.
The effect of version control on Compositions is visualised in FIGURE 9. The versions (each “ver-
sion” being a COMPOSITION) shown here in a VERSIONED_COMPOSITION are the same versions
shown along each vertical line in FIGURE 8, this time shown with their associated audit items. The
set of versions should be understood as a set of successive modifications of the same data in time.

Versioned
Compositions
VC VC
Care contact audit
Care audit contact
PlanCare audit 12/3/2001 audit
PlanCare audit 12/3/2001
Plan audit
update Plan correction
Compositions Composition

FIGURE 9 The versioned composition

The VERSIONED_COMPOSITION can be thought of as a kind of smart repository: how it stores suc-
cessive versions in time is an implementation concern (there are a number of intelligent algorithms
available for this sort of thing), but what is important is that its functional interface enables any ver-
sion to be retrieved, whether it be the latest, the first, or any in between.

4.3.2 Versioning Scenarios

The following scenarios for creating new COMPOSITION versions have been identified as follows.
Case 0: information is
authored locally, causing the creation of a new
VERSION<COMPOSITION>. If this is the first version, a new VERSIONED_COMPOSITION
will be created first.
Case 1: information is modified locally, such as for the correction of a wrongly entered datum in
a composition. This causes the creation of a new VERSION<COMPOSITION> in an existing
VERSIONED_COMPOSITION, in which the AUDIT_DETAILS.change_type is set to
“correction”.
Case 2: information received from a feeder system, e.g. a test result, which will be converted
and used to create a new VERSION<COMPOSITION>. This kind of acquisition could be done
automatically. If the receiver system needs to store a copy of the original feeder system audit
details, it writes it into the COMPOSITION.feeder_audit.

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Case 3: a VERSION<COMPOSITION> (such as a family history) received as part of an

EHR_EXTRACT from another openEHR system, which will be used by a local author to
create a new COMPOSITION that includes some content chosen from the received item. In
this case, the new VERSION<COMPOSITION> is considered as a locally authored one, in
which some content has been obtained from elsewhere. If it is the first version, a
VERSIONED_COMPOSITION is first created. The AUDIT_DETAILS documents the
committal of this content, and the clinician may choose to record some details about it in the
audit description.
In summary, the AUDIT_DETAILS is always used to document the addition of information locally,
regardless of where it has come from. If there is a need to record original audit details, they become
part of the content of the versioned object.

4.4 EHR Creation Semantics

4.4.1 EHR Identifier Allocation
openEHR EHRs are created due to two types of events. The first is a new patient presenting at the
provider institution. An EHR may be created due to this event, without reference to any other
openEHR EHRs that may exist in the broader community or jurisdiction. In this case, the EHR will be
allocated a new, globally unique EHR id. This establishes the new EHR as an intentional clone of the
source EHR (or more correctly, part of the family of EHRs making up the virtual EHR for that
patient).
On the other hand, an openEHR EHR may be created in an organisation as a logical clone (probably
partial) of an EHR for the patient in some other system. This might happen as a normal part of the
front-desk registration / admission process, i.e. the local EHR system is able to interrogate an EHR
location service and discover if any other EHR exists for this patient, or it may occur due to purely
electronic communications between two providers, i.e. the EHR is created because an Extract of an
EHR hs been sent from elsewhere as part of a referral or similar communication. In this second case,
the EHR id should be a copy of the EHR id from the other institution.
In theory such a scheme could guarantee one EHR id per patient, but of course in reality, various fac-
tors conspire against this, and it can only approximate it. For one thing, it is known that providers rou-
tinely create new EHRs for a patient regardless of how many other EHRs already exist for that
patient, simply because they have no easy way to find out about those EHRs. Ideally, this situation
would be improved in the openEHR world, but due to reliance on such things as distributed services
and reliable person identification, there are no guarantees. The best that can be said is that the EHR id
allocation scheme can help support an ideal EHR id-per-patient situation if and when it becomes pos-
sible.

4.4.2 Creation
When an EHR is created, the result should be a root EHR object, an EHR Status object, and an EHR
Access object, plus any other house-keeping information the versioning implementation requires. In a
normal implementation, the EHR Status and EHR Access objects would normally be created and
committed in a Contribution, just as any Composition would be. The EHR Status object has a special
status in the EHR, indicating whether the EHR should be included in querying, whether it is modifia-
ble, and by implication, whether it is active. Flags might be set to indicate that it is test record, or for
educational or training purposes. The initial creation operation has to supply sufficient parameters for
creation of these two objects, including:

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• system id
• EHR id
• Subject id (optional; the use of PARTY_SELF allows completely anonymous EHRs)
• queryable flag
• modifiable flag
• any other flags required by the EHR Status object in the local implementation.
The EHR id will either be a new globally unique identifier, in the case of first time EHR creation for
this patient in the health system, or else the same identifier as an existing EHR for the same subject in
another system, in the case of an EHR move or copy. The effect of EHR copying / synchronising
between systems is that EHRs with the same identifier can be found within multiple systems. How-
ever if the same patient presented at multiple provider locations with no EHR sharing capability, a
new EHR with a unique identifier will be created at each place. If a later request for copying occurs
(e.g. due to a request for an EHR Extract) between two providers, the requesting institution will per-
form the merge of the received copy into the existing EHR for the same patient.
The main consequences in a distributed environment are as follows:
• multiple EHR ids for a given patient indicate a mobile patient, but lack of systematic EHR
sharing;
• one EHR id everywhere for the patient indicates a seamlessly integrated distributed environ-
ment, most likely with a global identification service.
Note that the first situation is not a problem, and is not the same as the situation in which two EHRs
are identified as being for different patients (i.e. subject id rather than EHR id is different) when in
fact they are for the same person.

4.5 Time in the EHR

There are numerous times recorded in the EHR, at varying levels of granularity. Certain times are a
guaranteed by-product of the scientific investigation process, including time of sampling or collec-
tion; time of measurement, time of a healthcare business event, time of data committal. The following
figure indicates these times with respect to Observation recordings (generally the most numerous) in
the EHR.
The top part of FIGURE 10 shows the relationship of times typical for a physical examination at a GP
visit. The lower part of the figure shows different relationships common in radiology and microbiol-
ogy, where the sample (imaging or specimen collection) time can be quite different from the time of
assessment and reporting of the sample. The times shown in FIGURE 10 have a close correspondence
with the contexts described in Context Model of Recording on page 35; they also have (as shown)
concrete attributes in the reference model.
Other times to do with diagnoses (time of onset, time of resolution, time of last episode) and medica-
tion management (time started taking medication, time stopped, time suspended, etc) are specific to
the particular type of information (e.g. diagnosis versus prognosis versus recommendation) and are
generally represented as archetyped date/time values within Evaluation objects. Basic timing infor-
mation is modelled concretely in the Instruction and Action Entry types, while archetyping is used to
express timing information that is specific to particular content.

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generally
= instant event

sample/ measurement/
collection time reporting time
observation
Real-world healthcare event
commit
activities
data entry

openEHR COMPOSITION. OBSERVATION. time-lag recorded in COMPOSITION. VERSION.

record context.start_time data.origin archetyped attribute in context.end_time audit.time
OBSERVATION.data
if relevant

imaging report commit

radiology data entry
radiologist - assess images

openEHR OBSERVATION. COMPOSITION. COMPOSITION.

record data.origin context.start_time context.end_time
VERSION.
audit.time

nurse obs. vital vital vital

(hospital) signs commit signs commit signs commit
0100 0500 0900

openEHR ADMIN_ENTRY OBSERVATION. OBSERVATION. OBSERVATION. ADMIN_ENTRY

record move to ward data.origin data.origin data.origin discharge
time = ... time = ...
COMPOSITION. COMPOSITION. COMPOSITION. COMPOSITION. COMPOSITION.
context.start_time context.start_time context.start_time context.start_time context.start_time
context.end_time context.end_time context.end_time context.end_time context.end_time
VERSION. VERSION. VERSION. VERSION. VERSION.
audit.time audit.time audit.time audit.time audit.time

FIGURE 10 Time in the EHR

4.6 Historical Views of the Record

It is important to understand that the COMPOSITION versions at a previous point in time represent a
previously available informational state of the EHR, at a particular EHR node. Such previous states
include only those Compositions from other sources as have been acquired by that point in time,
regardless of whether the acquired information pertains to clinical information recorded earlier. A
previous historical state of the EHR thus corresponds to what users of a system could see at a particu-
lar moment of time. It is important to differentiate this from previous clinical states of the patient:
previous informational states of the EHR might include acquired information which is significantly
older than the point in time when merging occurred. A previous clinical state of the patient would be

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a derivable view of the EHRs in all locations for the patient - what is sometimes called the virtual
EHR - at a given point in time, minus acquired Compositions, since these constitute (usually out-of-
date) copies of Compositions primarily available elsewhere.
It is previous informational states with which we are concerned for medico-legal purposes, since they
represent the information actually available to clinicians at a health-care facility, at a point in time.
But previous clinical views may be useful for reconstructing an actual sequence of events as experi-
enced by the patient.

4.7 Class Descriptions

4.7.1 EHR Class

CLASS EHR

The EHR object is the root object and access point of an EHR for a subject of
Purpose
care.

CEN EHCR class

Synapses RecordFolder class

GEHR G1_EHR

Attributes Signature Meaning

system_id: HIER_OBJECT_ID The id of the EHR system on which this

1..1
EHR was created.
1..1 ehr_id: HIER_OBJECT_ID The id of this EHR.

1..1 time_created: DV_DATE_TIME Time of creation of the EHR

contributions: List of contributions causing changes to this

List<OBJECT_REF> EHR. Each contribution contains a list of
versions, which may include references to
1..1
any number of VERSION instances, i.e. items
of type VERSIONED_COMPOSITION and
VERSIONED_FOLDER.

ehr_access: OBJECT_REF Reference to EHR_ACCESS object for this

1..1
EHR.
ehr_status: OBJECT_REF Reference to EHR_STATUS object for this
1..1
EHR.

0..1 directory: OBJECT_REF Optional directory structure for this EHR.

compositions: List Master list of all composition references in

1..1
<OBJECT_REF> this EHR.

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CLASS EHR

System_id_valid: system_id /= Void

Ehr_id_valid: ehr_id /= Void
Time_created_valid: time_created /= Void
Contributions_valid: contributions /= Void and then contribu-
tions.for_all(type.is_equal(“CONTRIBUTION”))
Ehr_access_valid: ehr_access /= Void and then
Invariants ehr_access.type.is_equal(“VERSIONED_EHR_ACCESS”)
Ehr_status_valid: ehr_status /= Void and then
ehr_status.type.is_equal(“VERSIONED_EHR_STATUS”)
Compositions_valid: compositions /= Void and then
compositions.for_all(type.is_equal(“VERSIONED_COMPOSITION”))
Directory_valid: directory /= Void implies direc-
tory.type.is_equal(“VERSIONED_FOLDER”)

4.7.2 VERSIONED_EHR_ACCESS Class

CLASS VERSIONED_EHR_ACCESS

Purpose Version container for EHR_ACCESS instance.

Inherit VERSIONED_OBJECT<EHR_ACCESS>

Attributes Signature Meaning

Invariants

4.7.3 EHR_ACCESS Class

CLASS EHR_ACCESS
EHR-wide access contol object. All access decisions to data in the EHR must be
Purpose
made in accordance with the policies and rules in this object.

Inherit LOCATABLE

Attributes Signature Meaning

settings: Access control settings for the EHR.

ACCESS_CONTROL_SETTINGS Instance is a subtype of the type
0..1 ACCESS_CONTROL_SETTINGS, allowing
for the use of different access control
schemes.

Functions Signature Meaning

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CLASS EHR_ACCESS

scheme: String The name of the access control scheme in

1..1 use; corresponds to the concrete instance of
the settings attribute.
Scheme_exists: scheme /= Void and then not scheme.is_empty
Invariants

4.7.4 VERSIONED_EHR_STATUS Class

CLASS VERSIONED_EHR_STATUS

Purpose Version container for EHR_STATUS instance.

Inherit VERSIONED_OBJECT<EHR_STATUS>

Attributes Signature Meaning

Invariants

4.7.5 EHR_STATUS Class

CLASS EHR_STATUS

Purpose Single object per EHR giving various EHR-wide information.

Inherit LOCATABLE

Attributes Signature Meaning

subject: The subject of this EHR. The external_ref
PARTY_SELF attribute can be used to contain a direct ref-
erence to the subject in a demographic or
1..1
identity service. Alternatively, the associa-
tion between patients and their records may
be done elsewhere for security reasons.
is_queryable: Boolean True if this EHR should be included in pop-
1..1 ulation queries, i.e. if this EHR is considered
active in the population.

1..1 is_modifiable: Boolean True if this EHR is allowed to be written to.

other_details: Any other details of the EHR summary

0..1 ITEM_STRUCTURE object, in the form of an archetyped
Item_structure.

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CLASS EHR_STATUS

Is_archetype_root: is_archetype_root
Invariants Subject_valid: subject /= Void
No_parent: parent = Void

4.7.6 VERSIONED_COMPOSITION Class

CLASS VERSIONED_COMPOSITION

Version-controlled composition abstraction, defined by inheriting

Purpose
VERSIONED_OBJECT<COMPOSITION>.

GEHR G1_VERSIONED_COMPOSITION

Inherit VERSIONED_OBJECT<COMPOSITION>

Function Signature Meaning

is_persistent: Boolean Indicates whether this composition set is

persistent; derived from first version.
Archetype_node_id_valid: all_versions.for_all
(archetype_node_id.is_equal(all_versions.first.archetype_node_id))
Invariants Persistent_valid: all_versions.for_all (is_persistent =
all_versions.first.data.is_persistent)
Owner_id_valid: owner_id.generating_type.is_equal(“EHR”)

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5 Composition Package

5.1 Overview
The Composition is the primary ‘data container’ in the openEHR EHR and is the root point of clinical
content. Instances of the Composition class can be considered as self-standing data aggregations, or
documents in a document-oriented system. The key information in a COMPOSITION is found in its
content, context, and composer attributes. FIGURE 11 illustrates the composition package.

PATHABLE
(rm.common.archetyped)

LOCATABLE
(rm.common.archetyped)

coded by openEHR composition

codeset “languages” COMPOSITION
language[1]: CODE_PHRASE PARTY_PROXY
coded by openEHR
codeset “countries” territory[1]: CODE_PHRASE composer (rm.common.generic)
category[1]: DV_CODED_TEXT 1
coded by openEHR is_persistent: Boolean
Terminology, group
“composition category”
content 0..* content

CONTENT_ITEM

0..1 context
EVENT_CONTEXT 0..1 PARTY_IDENTIFIED
start_time[1]: DV_DATE_TIME (rm.common.generic)
end_time[0..1]: DV_DATE_TIME health_care_facility
coded by openEHR
Terminology group location[0..1]: String
setting[1]: DV_CODED_TEXT
0..* PARTICIPATION
“setting” participations (rm.common.generic)
other_context[0..1]: ITEM_STRUCTURE

FIGURE 11 rm.composition Package

5.2 Context Model of Recording

5.2.1 Overview
The openEHR EHR model takes account of a systematic analysis of “context”. Contexts in the real
world are mapped to particular levels of the information model in a clear way, according to the
scheme shown in FIGURE 12. On the left hand side is depicted the context of a data-entry session in
which the information generated by a “healthcare event”, containing “clinical statements”, is added to
the EHR. A healthcare event is defined as any business activity of the health care system for the
patient, including encounters, pathology tests, and interventions. A clinical statement is the minimal
indivisible unit of information the clinician wants to record. Clinical statements are shown in the dia-
gram has having temporal and spatial structure as well as data values. Each of these three contexts has
its own audit information, consisting of who, when, where, why information.

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data values
recorded in (1:1)
ENTRIES
spatial structure
recorded in (1:N)
temporal structure
organise by: SECTIONS

clinical statement COMPOSITION

commit to EHR
(Contribution) organise by: FOLDERs
healthcare event
data-entry session EHR

Healthcare Events Recording Environment

FIGURE 12 General Model of Recording
On the right hand side of FIGURE 12, the EHR recording environment is represented. The EHR con-
sists of distinct, coarse-grained items known as Compositions added over time and organised by Fold-
ers. Each Composition consists of Entries, organised by Sections within the Composition. The audit
information for each context is recorded at the corresponding level of the EHR.

5.2.2 Composer
The composer is the person who was primarily responsible for the content of the Composition. This is
the identifier that should appear on the screen. It could be a junior doctor who did all the work, even if
not legally responsible, or it could be a nurse, even if later attested by a more senior clinician; it will
be the patient in the case of patient-entered data. It may or may not be the person who entered and
committed the data. it may also be a software agent. This attribute is mandatory, since all content
must be been created by some person or agent.
Since in many cases Compositions will be composed and committed by the same person, it might
seem that two identifiers COMPOSITION.composer and VERSION.audit.committer (which are both of
type PARTY_PROXY) will be identical. In fact, this will probably not be the case, because the kind of
identifier to represent the composer will be a demographic identifier, e.g. “RN Jane Williams”, “RN
12345678”, whereas the identifier in the audit details will usually be a computer system user identi-
fier, e.g. “[email protected]”. This difference highlights the different purposes of
these attributes: the first exists to identify the clinical agent who created the information, while the
second exists to identify the logged-in user who committed it to the system.
In the situation of patient-entered data, the special “self” PARTY_PROXY instance (see Common IM
generic package) is used for both COMPOSITION.composer and VERSION.audit.committer.

5.2.3 Event Context

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5.2.3.1 Overview
The optional event_context in the COMPOSITION class is used to document the healthcare event caus-
ing new or changed content in the record. Here, ‘healthcare event’ means ‘a (generally billable) busi-
ness activity of the healthcare system with, for or on behalf of the patient’. Generally this will an
encounter involving the subject of care and physician, but is variable in a hospital environment. In
this sense, a visit to a GP is a single care event, but so is an episode in a hospital, which may encom-
pass multiple encounters. The information recorded in Event context includes start and (optional) end
time of the event, health care facility, setting (e.g. primary care, aged care, hospital), participating
healthcare professionals, and optional further details defined by an archetype.
Healthcare events that require an Event_context instance in their recorded information include the
following.
• Scheduled or booked patient encounters leading to changes to the EHR, including with a GP,
hospital consultant, or other clinical professional such as mobile nurse. In this case, the
Event context documents the time and place of the encounter, and the identity of the clinical
professional.
• Case conferences about a patient, leading to modifications to the health record; here the
Event context documents the case conference time, place and participants.
• Pathology, imaging or other test process. In this case, the Event context documents the place
and period during which testing and analysis was carried out, and by whom.
• Data resulting from care in the home provided by health professional(s) (often allied health
care workers).
Situations in which Event context is optional include the following.
• Nurse interactions with patients in hospital, including checking vital signs, adjusting medi-
cation or other aspects of bed situation for the patient. Each instance of a nurse’s observa-
tions are generally not considered to be a separate ‘care event’, rather they are seen as the
continuation of the general activities of monitoring. In such situations, the overall context is
given by ADMIN_ENTRY instances in the record indicating date/time and place of admission
and discharge.
Situations in which Event context is not used include:
• Any modification to the EHR which corrects or updates existing content, including by
administrative staff, and by clinical professionals adding or changing evaluations, summa-
ries etc.
• Patient-entered data where no interaction with health professionals took place; typically
readings from devices in the home such as weighing scales, blood glucose measuring
devices, wearable monitors etc.
Ultimately, the use of Event context will be controlled by Composition-level archetypes.
5.2.3.2 Occurrence in Data
For situations requiring an EVENT_CONTEXT object to be recorded, it is worth clarifying which Com-
positions carry such objects. Consider the example shown in FIGURE 13. In this example, a Contri-
bution is made to the EHR, consisting of one or more Compositions that were each created or
modified due to some clinical activity. Within such a set, there will usually be one Composition relat-
ing directly to the event, such as the patient contact - this is the Composition containing the doctor’s
observations, nurses’ activities etc, during the visit, and is therefore the one which contains the
EVENT_CONTEXT instance. Other Compositions changed during the same event (e.g. updates to med-

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ication list, family history and so on) do not require an Event context, since they are part of the same
Contribution, and the event context of the primary Composition can always be retrieved if desired.
Contributions A, B and C in the figure illustrate this case.
problem family care folders EHR sts
xxxx = COMPOSITION
list history plan

U U
A EC
Contribution contact problem care
(event) 1/4/1999 list ’ plan ’

B EC
Contribution test results
(acquisition) 1/2/2000
U U U
C EC
contact family care folders
Contribution
(event) 12/3/2001 history ’ plan ’’
time

C
D
Contribution contact ’
(correction) 1/4/1999
U
E
env
Contribution
(s/w upgr.)

FIGURE 13 Use of Event context

In cases where Contributions are made to the record with no event context, the Event context of any
Compositions from the original commit will remain intact and visible (unless the correction is to the
event context itself of course), and will correctly reflect the fact that no new clinical interaction
occurred. This is the case with Contribution D in the figure.
Persistent Compositions do not have an Event context.
5.2.3.3 Time
The times recorded in the Event context represent the time of an encounter or other activity under-
taken by a health provider to/for/on behalf of the patient. The time is represented as a mandatory start
time and optional end time. It is assumed that where there is a clinical session (i.e. an
EVENT_CONTEXT object does exist), the start time is known or can be reasonably approximated. It is
quite common that the end time of a consultation or encounter is not recorded, but rather inferred
from e.g. average consult times, or the start time of the next consult for the same physician.
Event context is used as described above even if the additions are made to the EHR long after the
event took place, such as happens when a doctor writes his/her notes into the record system at night,
after all patients have been seen. In such cases, the versioned Composition audit trail records the con-
text of when the data were entered, as distinct from the context of when the clinical interaction took
place.

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5.2.3.4 Participations
As part of the Event context, the participations attribute can be used to describe who participated, and
how. Each participation object describes the “mode” of participation as well, such as direct presence,
video-conference and so on. In many cases such information is of no interest, since the subject of any
Entry is known (ENTRY.subject) and the clinician will be known (COMPOSITION.composer), and the
mode of communication is assumed to be a personal encounter. The participations attribute is there-
fore used when it is desired to record further details of how the patient and or physician interacted
(e.g. over the internet), and/or other participants, such as family, nurses, specialists etc.
There are no general rules about who is included as a participant. For example, while there will be a
patient participation during a GP visit, there will be no such participation recorded when the clinical
event is a tissue test in a laboratory. Conversely, a patient might record some observations and drug
self-administration in the record, in which case the composer will be the patient, and there will be no
clinician participation. Consequently, the use of participations will mostly be archetype-driven.
5.2.3.5 Healthcare Facility, Location and Setting
The health_care_facility (HCF) attribute is used to record the health care facility in whose care the
event took place. This is the most specific identifiable (i.e. having a provider id within the health sys-
tem) workgroup or care delivery unit within a care delivery enterprise which was involved in the care
event. The identification of the HCF can be used to ensure medico-legal accountability. Often, the
HCF is also where the encounter physically took place, but not in the case of patient home visits,
internet contacts or emergency care; the HCF should not be thought of as a physical place, but as a
care delivery management unit. The physical place of care can be separately recorded in
EVENT_CONTEXT.location. The health_care_facility attribute is optional to allow for cases where the
clinical event did not involve any care delivery enterprise, e.g. self-care at home by the patient, emer-
gency revival by a non-professional (e.g. CPR by lifeguard on a beach), care by a professional acting
in an unofficial capacity (doctor on a plane asked to aid a passenger in difficulty). In all other cases, it
is mandatory. Archetypes are used to control this.
Two other context attributes complete the predefined notion of event context in the model: location
and setting. The location attribute records: the physical location where the care delivery took place,
and should document a reasonably specific identifiable location. Examples include “bed 5, ward E”,
“home”. This attribute is optional, since the location is not always known, particularly in legacy data.
The setting attribute is used to document the “setting” of the care event. In clinical record keeping,
this has been found to be a useful coarse-grained classifier of information. The openEHR Terminol-
ogy “setting” group is used to code this attribute. It is mandatory, on the basis that making it optional
will reduce its utility for querying and classification.

5.3 Composition Content

The data in a Composition is stored in the content attribute. There are four kinds of data structuring
possible in the content attribute:
• it may be empty. Although for most situations, there should be content in a Compostion,
there are at least two cases where an empty Composition makes sense:
- the first is a Composition in ‘draft’ editing state (VERSION.lifecycle_state =
‘incomplete’)
- the second is for systems that are only interested in the fact of an event having
taken place, but want no details, such as so-called clinical ‘event summary’
systems, which might record the fact of visits to the doctor, but contain no further

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information. This can be achieved using Compositions with event context, and no
further content.
• it may contain one or more SECTIONs which are defined in the archetype of the Composi-
tion;
• it may contain one or more SECTION trees, each of which is a separately archetyped struc-
ture;
• it may contain one or more ENTRYs directly, with no intermediate SECTIONs;
• it may be any combination of the previous three possibilities.
The actual structures used in a Composition at runtime are controlled by a template, which in turn
controls the particular combination of archetypes used.

5.4 Class Descriptions

5.4.1 COMPOSITION Class

CLASS COMPOSITION

One version in a VERSIONED_COMPOSITION. A composition is considered the

unit of modification of the record, the unit of transmission in record extracts, and
Purpose
the unit of attestation by authorising clinicians. In this latter sense, it may be con-
sidered equivalent to a signed document.

CEN Composition

GEHR G1_COMPOSITION_VERSION

Synapses Composition class

HL7v3 CDA DOCUMENT

Inherit LOCATABLE

Attributes Signature Meaning

0..1 content: List<CONTENT_ITEM> The content of this Composition.

context: EVENT_CONTEXT The clinical session context of this Com-

0..1 position, i.e. the contextual attributes of
the clinical session.
composer: PARTY_PROXY The person primarily responsible for the
content of the Composition (but not nec-
essarily its committal into the EHR sys-
tem). This is the identifier which should
1..1
appear on the screen. It may or may not
be the person who entered the data.
When it is the patient, the special “self”
instance of PARTY_PROXY will be used.

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CLASS COMPOSITION

category: DV_CODED_TEXT Indicates what broad category this Com-

position is belogs to, e.g. “persistent” - of
1..1
longitudinal validity, “event”, “process”
etc.
language: CODE_PHRASE Mandatory indicator of the localised lan-
guage in which this Composition is writ-
ten. Coded from openEHR Code Set
1..1
“languages”. The language of an Entry if
different from the Composition is indi-
cated in ENTRY.language.
territory: CODE_PHRASE Name of territory in which this Composi-
tion was written. Coded from openEHR
1..1
“countries” code set, which is an expres-
sion of the ISO 3166 standard.

Functions Signature Meaning

is_persistent: Boolean True if category is a “persistent” type,

False otherwise. Useful for finding Com-
1..1
positions in an EHR which are guaran-
teed to be of interest to most users.
Is_archetype_root: is_archetype_root
Composer_valid: composer /= Void
Content_valid: content /= Void implies not content.is_empty
Category_validity: category /= Void and then
terminology(Terminology_id_openehr).
has_code_for_group_id(Group_id_composition_category, cate-
Invariants gory.defining_code)
Is_persistent_validity: is_persistent implies context = Void
Territory_valid: territory /= Void and then
code_set(Code_set_id_countries).has_code(territory)
Language_valid: language /= Void and then
code_set(Code_set_id_languages).has_code(language)
No_parent: parent = Void

5.4.2 EVENT_CONTEXT Class

CLASS EVENT_CONTEXT

Documents the context information of a healthcare event involving the subject of

care and the health system. The context information recorded here are independ-
ent of the attributes recorded in the version audit, which document the “system
Purpose
interaction” context, i.e. the context of a user interacting with the health record
system. Healthcare events include patient contacts, and any other business activ-
ity, such as pathology investigations which take place on behalf of the patient.

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CLASS EVENT_CONTEXT

CEN Composition class

Synapses Composition class

HL7v3 TBD

Inherit PATHABLE

Attributes Signature Meaning

health_care_facility: The health care facility under whose care

PARTY_IDENTIFIED the event took place. This is the most
specific workgroup or delivery unit
0..1 within a care delivery enterprise that has
an official identifier in the health system,
and can be used to ensure medico-legal
accountability.
start_time: DV_DATE_TIME Start time of the clinical session or other
kind of event during which a provider
1..1
performs a service of any kind for the
patient.

0..1 end_time: DV_DATE_TIME Optional end time of the clinical session.

participations: Parties involved in the healthcare event.

List <PARTICIPATION> These would normally include the physi-
0..1 cian(s) and often the patient (but not the
latter if the clinical session is a pathology
test for example).
location: String The actual location where the session
0..1 occurred, e.g. “microbiol lab 2”, “home”,
“ward A3” and so on.
setting: DV_CODED_TEXT The setting in which the clinical session
1..1 took place. Coded using the openEHR
Terminology, “setting” group.
other_context: ITEM_STRUCTURE Other optional context which will be
0..1
archetyped.
start_time_valid: start_time /= Void
participations_validity: participations /= Void implies not participa-
tions.is_empty
Invariants location_valid: location /= Void implies not location.is_empty
setting_valid: setting /= Void and then
Terminology(Terminology_id_openehr).has_code_for_group_id
(Group_id_setting, setting.defining_code)

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6 Content Package

6.1 Overview
The content package contains the CONTENT_ITEM class, ancestor class of all content types, and the
navigation and entry packages, which contain SECTION, ENTRY and related types. The content
package is illustrated in FIGURE 14.

LOCATABLE
(rm.common.archetyped)

content

CONTENT_ITEM

navigation entry

FIGURE 14 rm.composition.content package

6.2 Class Descriptions

6.2.1 CONTENT_ITEM Class

CLASS CONTENT_ITEM (abstract)

Purpose Abstract ancestor of all concrete content types.

Inherit LOCATABLE

Attributes Signature Meaning

Invariants

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Navigation Package EHR Information Model
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7 Navigation Package

7.1 Overview
The navigation Package defines a hierachical heading structure, in which all individual headings
are considered to belong to a “tree of headings”. Each heading is an instance of the class SECTION,
illustrated in FIGURE 15.

LOCATABLE
(rm.common.archetyped)

0..* items
COMPOSITION CONTENT_ITEM
(rm.ehr.composition) content (rm.ehr.composition.content) *

navigation

SECTION

FIGURE 15 rm.composition.content.navigation Package

Sections provide both a logical structure for the author to arrange Entries, and a navigational structure
for readers of the record, whether they be human or machine. Sections are archetyped in trees with
each tree containing a root Section, one or more sub-sections, and any number of Entries at each
node. Section trees that are separately archetyped, such as the SOAP headings, or the heading struc-
ture for a physical examination, can be combined at runtime by type to form one large heading struc-
ture, as shown in FIGURE 16.
In terms of understanding of clinical data, Section structures are not essential in a Composition - they
can always be removed or ignored (typically in machine processing such as querying) without losing
the meaning of the Entries in the Composition. While Sections are often used to group Entries accord-
ing to status, e.g. “family history”, “problems”, “observations”, it is the Entries themselves that indi-
cate the definitive category of information contained therein. This principle is explained in more
detail in Entry and its Subtypes on page 52.
Despite the above, Section structures do not have to be regarded as ad hoc or unreliable structures. On
the contrary, as they are archetyped, their structures can be relied upon in the same way as any other
structure in the record can be relied on to conform to its archetype. Accordingly, solid assumptions
can be made about Sections, based on their archetypes, for the purposes of querying. In fact, the main
benefit of Sections is that they may provide significant performance benefits to querying, whether by
interactive application or by automated systems.
One potentially confusing aspect of any Section structure is that while the root Section in a tree is log-
ically a Section, it does not appear in a display or printed form as a visible section. This is due to the
fact that humans don’t usually write down top-level headings for anything, since there is always a
containing structure acting as a top-level organising context (such as the piece of paper one is writing
on). For example, consider the way a clinician writes down the problem/SOAP headings on paper.
She writes the name of the first problem, then under that, the S/O/A/P headings, then repeats the proc-
ess for further problems. But she doesn’t write down a heading above the level of the problems, even
though there must be one from a data structure point of view.

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ARCHETYPE_ COMPOSITION
DETAILS

ARCHETYPE_ SECTION
DETAILS
SECTION

SECTION SECTION

E E

E E

ARCHETYPE_ SECTION E
DETAILS

E
SECTION

SECTION

= extent of archetype E

FIGURE 16 Section View of a General Practice Contact Composition

7.2 Class Descriptions

7.2.1 SECTION Class

CLASS SECTION

Purpose Represents a heading in a heading structure, or “section tree”.

Created according to archetyped structures for typical headings such as SOAP,

Use
physical examination, but also pathology result heading structures.

MisUse Should not be used instead of ENTRY hierarchical structures.

CEN Headed_section

COAS::CompositeObservation (COAS does not distinguish between the seman-

OMG HDTF tics of Sections and hierarchical structure inside Entries, modelled in openEHR by
Cluster).

GEHR G1_ORGANISER

HL7v3 CDA Heading.

Inherit CONTENT_ITEM

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CLASS SECTION

Attributes Signature Meaning

items: List<CONTENT_ITEM> Ordered list of content items under this sec-

tion, which may include:
0..1
• more SECTIONs
•ENTRYs

Invariants Items_valid: items /= Void implies not items.is_empty

7.3 Section Instance Structures

7.3.1 Problem/SOAP Headings
An example of an section tree representing the problem/SOAP heading structure is shown in FIG-
URE 17.

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COMPOSITION
n = “patient contact”
m = at0000 (patient contact)
content
SECTION
n = “SOAP headings”
m = at0001 (SOAP headings)

items
SECTION
items
n = “diabetes”
m = at0000 (problem)

SECTION SECTION SECTION SECTION

n = “subjective” n = “objective” n = “assessment” n = “plan”
m = at1000 (subjective) m = at2000 (objective) m = at3000 (assessment) m = at4000 (plan)

items items items items

OBSERVATION OBSERVATION EVALUATION INSTRUCTION
n = “headache” n = “BP” n = “hypertension” n = “low salt diet”
m = at0203 (pain) m = at0000 (BP meas) m = at0000 (diagnosis) m = at0100(diet)

OBSERVATION
n = “weight”
items m = at0000 (weight)
SECTION
items
n = “back”
m = at0000 (problem)

SECTION SECTION SECTION SECTION

n = “subjective” n = “objective” n = “assessment” n = “plan”
m = at1000 (subjective) m = at2000 (objective) m = at3000 (assessment) m = at4000 (plan)

items items items items

OBSERVATION OBSERVATION EVALUATION INSTRUCTION
n = “lower back pain” n = “tenderness” n = “muscular n = “diclofenac”
m = at0203 (pain) m = at0000(palpa- sprain” m = at0000 (medi-
tion) m = at0001 (diagno- cation order)
sis)
FIGURE 17 “problem/SOAP” Section Structure

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8 Entry Package

8.1 Design Principles

8.1.1 Information Ontology
All information which is created in the openEHR health record is expressed as an instance of a class
in the entry package, containing the ENTRY class and a number of descendants. An ENTRY instance
is logically a single ‘clinical statement’, and may be a single short narrative phrase, but may also con-
tain a significant amount of data, e.g. a microbiology result, a psychiatric examination, a complex
prescription. In terms of clinical content, the Entry classes are the most important in the openEHR
EHR Information Model, since they define the semantics of all the ‘hard’ information in the record.
They are intended to be archetyped, and in fact, archetypes for Entries make up the vast majority of
important clinical archetypes defined.
The design of Entry package is based on the Clinical Investigator Recording process and ontology,
described in Beale & Heard [4]. The process is shown in the FIGURE 18.

published 1 administrative
evidence observations
base 2 patient
opinions
- assessment actions 4
personal - goals
knowledge - plan
base instructions investigator
agents
investigator 3
FIGURE 18 Clinical Investigator Recording Process

This figure shows the cycle of information created by an iterative, problem solving process under-
taken by a “clinical investigator system”, which consists of health carers, and may include the patient
(at points in time when the patient performs observational or therapeutic activities).
Starting from the patient (right hand side of figure) observations are made, which lead to opinions on
the part of the investigator, including assessment of the current situation, goals for a future situation,
and plans for achieving the goals. Personal and published evidence and knowledge almost always
play an important part in this process. The latter lead to instructions designed to help the patient
achieve the goals. A complex or chronic problem may take numerous iterations - possibly a whole
lifetime’s worth - with each step being quite small, and future steps depending heavily on past
progress. The role of the investigator (and associated agents) is normally filled by health care profes-
sionals, but may also be filled by the patient, or a guardian or associate of the patient. Indeed, this is
what happens every time a person goes home from the pharmacy with prescribed medication to take
at home.
The process illustrated in FIGURE 18 is a synthesis of the “problem-oriented” approach of Weed [16]
and the “hypothetico-deductive model” of clinical reasoning described by Elstein et al [6]. However,
as pointed out in Elstein & Schwarz [7], hypothesis-making and testing is not the only successful
process used by clinical professionals - evidence shows that many (particularly those older and more
experienced) rely on pattern recognition and direct retrieval of plans used previously with similar

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patients or prototype models. The investigator process is compatible with both cognitive approaches,
since it does not say how opinions are formed, nor imply any specific number or size of iterations to
bring the process to a conclusion. As such, the openEHR information model does not impose any
process model, only the types of information used.
On the basis of this process, a Clinical Investigator Recording ontology is developed [4], as shown in
FIGURE 19. From this ontology, the openEHR class model for Entries is derivde. The openEHR
Entry class names are annotated next to their originating ontological categories.

xxx = observation-related ENTRY recorded

information
xxx = intervention-related
ADMIN_ENTRY
CARE_ENTRY
care admin
information information

EVALUATION INSTRUCTION
cognitive/temporal
history opinion instruction
categories

OBSERVATION ACTION
observation/ action proposal investigation intervention
observation assessment
intervention request request
categories

analytical scenario goal

categories diagnosis risk prognosis recommendation

FIGURE 19 The Clinical Investigator Recording (CIR) ontology

The key top-level categories in the ontology are ‘care information’ and ‘administrative information’.
The former encompasses all statements that might be recorded at any point during the care process,
and consists of the major subcategories ‘history’, ‘opinion’ and ‘instruction’, which themselves corre-
spond to the past, present and future in time (ISO TC215 uses the terms ‘retrospective’, ‘current’ and
‘prospective’). The administrative information category covers information which is not generated by
the care process proper, but relates to organising it, such as appointments and admissions. This infor-
mation is not about care, but about the logistics of care being delivered. Categories that relate to the
patient system as observed and understood are shown as white bubbles, while categories that relate to
intervention into the patient system are shown as shaded. The opinion category has features of both
passive analysis and active intervention.
There are two key justifications for using the ontology of FIGURE 19 as a basis for class design.
Firstly, although for all categories in the ontology there is a meaning for ‘contextual’ attributes of
time, place, identity, reason and so on, each category has a different structure for these attributes. For
example, time in the Observation category has a linear historical structure, whereas in Instruction it
has a branching, potentially cyclic structure. The separation of types allows these contextual
attributes to be modelled according to the type. Secondly, the separation of types provides a system-
atic solution to the so-called problem of “status” or “meaning modification” of clinical statement val-
ues, as described below.

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8.1.2 Clinical Statement Status and Negation

A well-known problem in clinical information recording is the problem of assigning “status”, includ-
ing variants like “actual value of P” (P stands for some phenomenon), “family history of P”, “risk of
P”, “fear of P”, as well as negation of any of these, i.e. “not/no P”, “no history of P” etc. A proper
analysis of these so called statuses [4] shows that they are not “statuses” at all, but different categories
of information as per the ontology. The common statement types mentioned here are mapped as fol-
lows:
• actual value of P  Observation (of P);
• no/not P  Observation (of excluded P or types of P, e.g. allergies).
• family history of P  Evaluation (that patient is at risk of P);
• no family history of P  Evaluation (that P is an excluded risk);
• risk of P  Evaluation (that patient is at risk of P);
• no risk of P  Evaluation (that patient is not at risk of P);
• fear of P  Observation (of FEAR, with P mentioned in the description);
In general, negations of the kind mentioned above are handled by using “exclusion” archetypes for
the appropriate Entry type. For example, “no allergies” can be modelled using an Evaluation arche-
type that describes which allergies are excluded for this patient.
Another set of statement types that can be confused in systems that do not properly model informa-
tion categories concern interventions, e.g. “hip replacement (5 years ago)”, “hip replacement
(planned)”, “hip replacement (ordered for next tuesday 10 am)”. Ambiguity is removed here as well,
with the use of the correct information categories, e.g. (I stands for an intervention):
• I (distant past/unmanaged/passively documented)  Observation (of I present in patient);
• I (recent past)  Action (of I having been done to/for patient);
• I (proposed)  Evaluation, subtype Proposal (of I suggested/likely for patient);
• I (ordered)  Instruction (of I for patient for some date in the future).
Related to the problem of clinical status is the need to differentiate between diagnoses that have been
made in the present from those that were made in the past, and are reported by the patient. In
openEHR, diagnosis and indeed all opinion category types are modelled as Evaluations, regardless of
when they were made. Time information for diagnosis and other opinions is simply handled within
the archetype for Evaluation, enabling a diagnosis (say of diabetes) that was made 15 years ago to
have the same status as one made during the period when the EHR was actually operating, and the
patient was under the care of the physician using it. Archetypes for the opinion categories tend to
have quite a number of times, including “time first noticed”, “time of onset”, and so on.
Correct use of the categories from the ontology is facilitated by using archetypes designed to map
particular kinds of clinical statement to particular ENTRY subtypes. In a system where Entries are thus
modelled, there will be no danger of incorrectly identifying the various kinds of Entries, as long as the
Entry subtype, time, and certainty/negation are taken into account.

8.1.3 Standard Clinical Types of Data

Commonly used types of clinical information are directly representable using the openEHR Entry
types. As described in the openEHR EHR IM, two kinds of Composition are identified: persistent and
event. The persistent kind corresponds to information that characterises the patient in the long term,
and is maintained by clinicians - it can be thought of as a proxy “model of the patient”. Most of the
the following are examples of Entry level data belonging inside persistent Compositions:

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Basic information (dob, sex, height, weight, pregnant etc): recorded as Observations and/or
Admin_entries;
Problem list: maintained as one or more Evaluations which themselves are generated by
clinicians as a rsult of observations made elsewhere in the record;
Medications list: derived from Instructions and Actions in the record. The status of Actions
allows medications to be displayed as past, current, suspended etc.
Therapeutic precautions (allergies and alerts): recorded as Evaluations of various kinds
(adverse reactions are essentially a kind of diagnosis);
Patient preferences: recorded as Evaluations (since they act like contra-indications for certain
drugs or treatments);
Patient consents: recorded as instances of Admin_entry;
Family history:
- actual events / conditions in family members are recorded as Observations (e.g. father
died of MI at 62)
- patient risks are expressed using Evaluations, often including family history reasons.
Social history/situation: current and previous social situation (e.g. in nursing care, details of
feeding, sleeping arrangments) are documented as Observations.
Lifestyle: there are various Observation archetypes for recording aspects of lifestyle, including
exercise, smoking/tobacco, alcohol, drug use and so on.
Vaccination record: vaccinations are a kind of Instruction; vaccinations that have actually been
given are available as Actions in the record.
Care plan: combinations of goals, targets (Evaluations), monitoring, education (Instructions),
etc orgnanised in a care plan Section hierarchy.
The remaining vast majority of remaining clinical information is recorded inside event Compositions,
and includes the following:
laboratory results including imaging: recorded as Observations;
physical examinations: recorded as Observations
appointment, admission and discharge: recorded as Admin_entry
prescriptions: one or more medication orders (each one is an Instruction) within a prescription
Section structure, within a prescription Composition.
referrals: recorded as Instructions (i.e. a request for care by another provider).
The above concepts are defined in terms of archetypes of Entry and other reference model types in
openEHR; their definition is therefore completely separate from the reference model.

8.1.4 Demographic Data in the EHR

The general approach of openEHR is to enable the complete separation of demographic (particularly
patient-identification information) from health records, both in the interests of privacy (in some cases
required by national legislation) and separated data management. The Demographic IM therefore
defines demographic information. However, there is nothing to prevent certain demographic informa-
tion occurring in the EHR, and in some cases this is desirable. The two main cases for this are:
• clinically-relevant patient information, such as age, sex, height, weight, eye-colour, ethnic-
ity or ‘race’, occupation;

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• identifiers and/or names of health care provider individuals and organisations may be stored
directly in the EHR, regardless of whether there is also more detalied information about
such entities in the demographic system.
The model of all information intended for a separate openEHR demographic service (itself usually a
front-end to an existing hospital master patient index or similar) is defined in the openEHR Demo-
graphic Information Model.

8.2 Entry and its Subtypes

The Entry model is defined by the composition.content.entry package, shown in FIGURE 20.
The choice of subtypes of ENTRY is based on the ontology shown in FIGURE 19 and its associated
model. The names do not coincide exactly however, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the category
names in the hierarchy were chosen based on a philosophical/scientific model of investigation, and
reflecting linguistic norms for the meanings of the terms, whereas the class names used here reflect
common health computing and clinical usage of these terms (i.e. names which will make sense to
software developers in the health arena). Names in these two cultures do not always coincide. Addi-
tionally, for categories such as Opinion and Instruction, the subcategories shown in the ontology (e.g.
Assessment, Goal and Plan) are too variable to safely be subtyped in software, and are distinguished
only at the archetype level. Only a single class for each of these ontological groups is used in the for-
mal model. The use of different names and a slightly simplified mapping has not however prevented
the faithful implementation of the semantics of the model. The model classes are described in the fol-
lowing subsections.

8.2.1 The Entry class

All Entries have a number of attributes in common. The language and encoding attributes indicate
how all text data within the Entry are to be interpreted linguistically and at the character set level.
Normally, the language will be the same throughout the entire Entry (if not Composition), but in cases
where it is not, the optional language attribute of DV_TEXT can be used to override the value in the
enclosing ENTRY (or other enclosing structure, if a DV_TEXT is being used in some other context).
Character encoding can be overridden in the same fashion by the encoding attribute within DV_TEXT.
The other attributes common to all Entry subtypes are as follows:
subject: this attribute records the subject of the Entry as an instance of a subtype of
PARTY_PROXY. When this is the record subject, (i.e. the patient), the value is an instance of
PARTY_SELF. Otherwise it is typically a family member, sexual partner, or other
acquaintance of the record subject. It could also be an organ donor. The latter is expressed in
the form of a PARTY_IDENTIFIED or RELATED_PARTY instance, which describes the kind
of relationship, and optionally, identifies the demographic entity.
subject_is_self: convenience function returning True when the Entry is about the subject of the
record.
provider: the agent who provided the information. This is usually the patient or the clinician, but
may be someone else, or a software application or device. If participation details of the
provider (e.g. mode of communication) need to be recorded, the details should be recorded
once in the EVENT_CONTEXT.participations. The provider attribute is optional, since it is
often implicit in the information that was recorded.
other_participations: other participations which existed for this Entry, e.g. a nurse who
administered a drug in an INSTRUCTION; only required in cases where participants other
than the subject of the information and the provider of the information need to be recorded.

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 PATHABLE
(rm.common.archetyped)

LOCATABLE
(rm.common.archetyped)

CONTENT_ITEM
(rm.composition.content)
entry
coded by openEHR ENTRY
codeset “languages” language[1]: CODE_PHRASE
encoding[1]: CODE_PHRASE
coded by openEHR
codeset “character sets” subject[1]: PARTY_PROXY
provider[0..1]: PARTY_PROXY
other_participations[0..1]: List<PARTICIPATION>
workflow_id[0..1]: OBJECT_REF
subject_is_self: Boolean

ADMIN_ENTRY CARE_ENTRY
data[1]: ITEM_STRUCTURE protocol[0..1]: ITEM_STRUCTURE
guideline_id[0..1]: OBJECT_REF

OBSERVATION EVALUATION INSTRUCTION ACTION

data[1]: data[1]: narrative[1]: DV_TEXT time[1]: DV_DATE_TIME
HISTORY <ITEM_STRUCTURE> ITEM_STRUCTURE expiry_time[0..1]: DV_DATE_TIME description[1]: ITEM_STRUCTURE
state[0..1]: wf_definition[0..1]: DV_PARSABLE
HISTORY <ITEM_STRUCTURE> instruction_
activities ism_transition 1 details 0..1
*
ACTIVITY ISM_TRANSITION INSTRUCTION_DETAILS
description[1]: ITEM_STRUCTURE current_state[1]: DV_CODED_TEXT instruction_id[1]:
timing[1]: DV_PARSABLE transition[0..1]: DV_CODED_TEXT LOCATABLE_REF
action_archetype_id[1]: String careflow_step[0..1]: DV_CODED_TEXT activity_id[1]: String
wf_details[0..1]:
coded by ITEM_STRUCTURE
coded by openEHR
coded by openEHR archetype.
Terminology, group
“instruction states” Terminology, group
“instruction transitions”

FIGURE 20 rm.composition.content.entry Package

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Note that the term ‘provider’ as used here should not be confused with the more specific healthcare
term used in many english-speaking countries meaning ‘health care provider’, which is usually
understood to be a physician or healthcare delivery enterprise such as a hospital. In the model here, it
simply means ‘provider of information’ in the context of an Entry. The information provider is
optional, and in many cases will not be recorded, since it will be obvious from the composer and
other_participations of the enclosing Composition. In many cases, it is not sensible to record a pro-
vider, e.g. in the most mundane case where a GP asks “where does it hurt” and the patient says “here”
- in such cases, it can only be considered mutual. It is expected to be used only when the composer of
the Composition really needs to specify the origin of specific statements, such as in the following cir-
cumstances:
• the information provider is specifically accountable for the Entry data (it is their opinion,
their decision, they carried out the test etc) - they might also need to attest it;
• the information provider is an authoritative source, or has provided information from a
unique perspective (e.g. the view of a spouse/ carer on the patient's functional health status
or mental state);
• the information provider’s view might not reflect the consensus (e.g. a patient opinion not
held by the composer, a difference between father and mother on a description of a child's
sleeping pattern);
• the information provider is not one of the Composition-level participants (e.g. an outside
information provider such as someone telephoned during the encounter to provide a lab
result, or an automated measurement device, or a decision support software component).

8.2.2 Care_entry and Admin_entry

A basic division occurs between clinical and non-clinical information. The CARE_ENTRY class is an
abstract precursor of classes that express information of any clinical activity in the care process
around the patient, while ADMIN_ENTRY is used to capture administrative information. The division
may occasionally seem ambiguous at a theoretical level, but at a practical level, it is almost always
clear. Administrative information has the following characteristics:
• it is created by non-clinical staff, or clinical staff acting in an administrative capacity (e.g. a
nurse or doctor who has to fill out an admission form in A&E);
• it expresses details to do with coordinating the clinical process, by recording e.g. admission
information (enables clinical staff to know who is in the hospital and where they can be
found), appointments (ensuring patient and physician get together at an agreed time and
place), discharge/dismissal (allowing clinical staff to know that a patient has been sent home
healthy, or transferred to another institution), billing and insurance information (where such
information is required in the EHR; it may well be in its own system);
• removing administative information from the EHR would not compromise its clinical integ-
rity, it would simply mean that carers and patients would no longer know when and where
they were supposed to meet, or when the patient has entered or left a health care facility.
Conversely, every instance of a CARE_ENTRY subtype is clinically significant, even if it also carries
information which might be of interest to other health management functions billing (e.g. ICD10
coded diagnoses), practice management (e.g. date, time and place in an order for day surgery). The
CARE_ENTRY type includes two attributes particular to all clinical entries, namely protocol and
guideline_id.
These attributes allow the “how” and “why” aspects of any clinical recording to be expressed. Proto-
col is often recorded for Observations (e.g. staining method in microscopy) and Instructions (e.g.

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8.2.3 Observation
Instances of the OBSERVATION class record the observation of any phenomenon or state of interest to
do with the patient, including pathology results, blood pressure readings, the family history and social
circumstances as told by the patient to the doctor, patient answers to physician questions during a
physical examination, and responses to a psychological assessment questionnaire. Observations are
distinguished from Actions in that Actions are interventions whereas Observations record only infor-
mation relating to the situation of the patient, not what is done to him/her.
The significant information of an Observation is expressed in terms of “data”, “state” and “protocol”.
The first of these is recorded in the data attribute, defined as follows:
data: the actual datum being recorded; expressed in the form of a History of Events, each of
which can be a complex data structure such as a List, Table, Single (value), or Tree, in its
own right. Examples include blood pressure, heartrate, ECG traces.
State information can be recorded in the state attribute of Observation, or within the state attribute of
each Event in the Observation data attribute (see below and also Data Structures IM for more detailed
explanations). The state attribute in Observation is defined as follows:
state: any particular information about the state of the subject of the Entry necessary to correctly
interpret the data, which is not already known in the health record (i.e. facts such as the
patient being female, pregnant, or currently undergoing chemotherapy). For example,
exersion level (resting, post-marathon...), position (lying, standing), post- glucose challenge,
and so on. The form of the state attribute is the same as that of the data attribute: a History
of Events of Item_structures.
The inherited protocol attribute is defined as follows:
protocol: details of how the observation was carried out, which might include a particular
clinical protocol (e.g. Bruce protocol for treadmill exercise ECG) and/or information about
instruments other other observational methods. This information can always be safely
omitted from the user interface, i.e. has no bearing on the interpretation of the data.
The detailed semantics of Observation data are described in the following subsections.
8.2.3.1 Timing in Observations
Many health information models express observation time as one or more attributes with names like
‘observation_time’, ‘activity_time’ and so on. The openEHR model departs from this by modelling
historical time inside a History/Event structure defined in the data_structures.history pack-
age1. In short, this package defines the HISTORY class with an origin attribute, and a series of EVENT
instances each containing a time attribute. Instantaneous and interval events are distinguished via the
EVENT subtypes POINT_EVENT and INTERVAL_EVENT; interval events have the width attribute is set
to the duration of the interval.
8.2.3.2 Valid Contents of a History
One of the aims of the model of Observation described here is to represent in the same way single
sample and multi-sample time-based data for which measurement protocol is invariant. It is not
intended for measurements in “coarse” time taken by different people, different instruments, or with
any other difference in data-gathering technique. In these cases, separate, usually single-sample histo-
ries are used, usually occurring in distinct container objects (e.g. distinct Compositions, in the EHR).

1. Defined in the Data Structures IM; see http://svn.openehr.org/specification/TRUNK/publish-

ing/architecture/rm/data_structures_im.pdf.

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Accordingly, in the general practice setting, the use of HISTORY will correspond to measurement
series which occur during the clinical session (i.e. during a patient contact). In a hospital setting,
nurses’ observations might occur in 4-hourly intervals, and there is no well-defined clinical session -
simply a series of ENTRYs during the time of the episode. Two approaches are possible here.
• If each Observation is to be committed to the EHR as soon as it is made, the result will be
distinct COMPOSITIONs in time, each with its event_context corresponding to the period of
the nurse’s presence. Each Composition will contain one or more Observations, each con-
taining in their data a History of one sample of the measured vital sign.
• If Observations are not committed to the EHR immediately, but are stored elsewhere and
only committed (say) at the end of each day, then the result will be a single Composition
whose event_context corresponds to the total data gathering period, and which contains
Observations whose data are multi-event Histories representing the multiple measurements
made over the day.
Whether time-based data remain outside the record until a series of desired length is gathered, or
entered as it occurs is up to the design of applications and systems; the approach taken should be
based on the desired availability of the data in the system in question. If for example, it must be visi-
ble in the EHR as soon as the appropriate Compositions are written, then it should be represented as
Histories in each relevant Composition; if it need only be available at some much later point in time
(e.g. because it is known that no-one but the treating clinician is interested in it), then it can be stored
in another system until sufficient items have been gathered for committal to the EHR.
8.2.3.3 Clinical Semantics of Event Time
In most cases, the times recorded in a History (HISTORY.origin and EVENT.time, width) can be
thought of as “the times when the observed phenomena were true”. For example, if a pulse of 88bpm
is recorded for 12/feb/2005 12:44:00, this is the time at which the heartrate (for which pulse is a sur-
rogate) existed. In such cases, the sample time, and the measuring time are one and the same.
However in cases where the time of sampling is different from that of measurement, the semantics are
more subtle. There are two cases. The first is where a sample is taken (e.g. a tissue sample in a needle
biopsy), and is tested later on, but from the point of view of the test, the time delay makes no differ-
ence. This might be because the sample was immediately preserved (e.g. freezing, placed in a sterile
anaerobic transport container), or because even if it decays in some way, it makes no difference to the
test (e.g. bacteria may die, but this makes no difference to a PCT analysis, as long as the biological
matter is not physically destroyed).
The second situation is when the sample does decay in some way, and the delay is relevant. Most such
cases are in pathology tests, where presence of live biological organisms (e.g. anaerobic bacteria) is
being measured. The sample time (or ‘collection’ time) must be recorded. Depending on when the
test is done, the results may be interpreted differently.
The key question is: what is the meaning of the HISTORY.origin and EVENT.time attributes in these
situations? It is tempting to say that their values are (as in other cases) just the times of the actual act
of observation, e.g. microscopy, chromatography etc. However, there are two problems with this.
Firstly, and most importantly, all physical samples must be understood as being indirect surrogates
for some aspect of the patient state at the time of sampling, which cannot be observed by direct,
instantaneous means in the way a pulse can be taken. This means that no matter when the laboratory
work is done, the time to which the result applies is the sample time. It is up to the laboratory to take
into account time delays and effects of decay of samples in order to provide a test result which cor-
rectly indicates the state of the patient at the time of sampling. The common sense of this is clear
when one considers the extreme case where the patient is in a coma or dead (possibly for reasons

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completely unrelated to the problem being tested for) by the time laboratory testing actually occurs;
however, the test result indicates the situation at the point in time when the sample was taken, i.e.
when the patient was alive. The second reason is that some kinds of testing are themselves lengthy.
For example fungal specimens require 4-6 weeks to confirm a negative result; checks will be made on
a daily or weekly basis to find positive growth. However, the result data reported by the laboratory
(and therefore the structure of the Observation) is not related to the timing of the laboratory testing; it
is reported as being the result for the time of collection of the specimen from the patient.
The meaning therefore of the HISTORY.origin and EVENT.time attributes in openEHR is always the
time of sampling. Where delays between sample and measurement times exist and are significant,
they are noted in the protocol section of the Observation; such times are modelled in the appropriate
archetypes, and taken into account in results.
8.2.3.4 Two ways of Recording State
State information is optional, and is not needed if the data are meaningful on their own. If it is
recorded, it can either be as a History of its own (i.e. using the OBSERVATION.state atttribute
described above), or else as state values within the EVENT instances in the OBSERVATION.data His-
tory. Both methods are useful in different circumstances. A separate state history is more likely to be
used in a correlation study such as a sports medicine study on heartrate with respect to specific types
of exercise. In this method, the state information is a History of Events whose times and widths need
not match those of the History in the data attribute. The state data under this approach generally
express the condition of the subject in absolute terms, i.e. they are standalone statements about the
subject’s state at certain points in time, such as “walking on treadmill 10km/h, 10o incline”.
The other method will be used in most general medicine, e.g. for recording fasting and post glucose
challenge states of a patient undergoing a glucose tolerance test. (See the Data Structures Information
Model for more details). State values stored within the data History represent the situation in the sub-
ject at the time of the Event within the History and usually in relation to it, for example “post 8 hour
fast”. Recording the latter example in an independent state History would require an Event of 8 hours’
duration called ‘fast’. The latter would be technically still correct, but would be very unnatural to
most clinicians. FIGURE 21 illustrates the two methods of recording state.

8.2.4 Evaluation
According to the ontology described in [4], the Opinion category covers a number of concrete con-
cepts, as follows.
problem/diagnosis: the assignment of a known diagnosis or problem label to a set of observed
signs and symptoms in the patient, for the purpose of determining and managing treatment.
The physician will usually include a date of initial onset, date clinically recognised, date of
last occurrence, date of resolution of last occurrence and possibly other timing information.
risk assessment: an evaluation of the likelihood and timing of a certain event occurring or
condition appearing.
scenario: an opinion about the outcome if a certain intervention is proceeded with.
goal: statement of a target, and a time at which it should be reached.
recommendation: a description in general terms of a suggested care approach for the patient,
based on diagnosis; includes various times or time-periods for activities, such as monitoring,
taking of medications, and review.
The approach taken to modelling these concepts in openEHR is heavily based upon the development
of archetypes for assessments such as “diagnosis” (various kinds), “goal”, “adverse reactions”,

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OBSERVATION data HISTORY

protocol origin
EVENT EVENT EVENT
time time time

state at time of each event state data state data state data

OBSERVATION data HISTORY

protocol origin
EVENT EVENT EVENT
time time time
state
data data data

HISTORY
origin
EVENT EVENT
time time
independent state information
data data

FIGURE 21 Alternative ways of recording state

“alert”, “exclusion”, “clinical synopsis”, “risk based on family history” and so on. Experience has
shown that the Opinion category is too variable for safely modelling its sub-categories directly in the
reference model. Instead, a single class EVALUATION is used for all instances of the Opinion cate-
gory. (The name Evaluation has been present in openEHR for some years, and is retained for reasons
of continuity).
The design of the EVALUATION class is very simple. In addition to the attributes inherited from
ENTRY and CARE_ENTRY, it has only one attribute, data: ITEM_STRUCTURE. This structure is
intended to be archetyped so as to model all the details of any particular clinical information in the
Opinion category. No timing attributes are included, since there is no time associated with creation or
capturing of Evaluation information as such, only times included in the information. The only times
of generic significance are (potentially) the time of a patient consultation during which the Evaluation
was created (recorded in COMPOSITION.event_context.start_time and end_time) and the time of com-
mittal to the EHR system (recorded in VERSION.commit_audit attribute).
The general meaning of the inherited attributes is as for all Entries. In Evaluations, the provider is
almost always the physician, while the protocol may be used to indicate how a particular assessment
was made. The other_participations attribute is not as likely to be used for Evaluations representing
diagnoses, since a diagnosis is usually the result of thinking on the part of the physician; an exception
to this would be a case conference or if an expert system were used. However, Plans for complex
patients may well be constructed by multiple physicians.

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8.2.5 Instruction and Action

Instructions in openEHR specify actions to be performed in the future. They differ from information
in the Proposal sub-category of Opinion in the ontology (i.e. instances of Evaluation in the class
model) in that they are specified in sufficient detail to be directly enacted without further clinical
decision-making related to the design of the Instruction, e.g they can be performed by the patient or a
nurse. Any decisions that could be made during the performance of an Instruction are either con-
strained by the Instruction itself (e.g. dose range; suspend if adverse reaction) or else are assumed
knowledge of the expected performer. For example, an Evaluation may say that “oral cortico-steroids
are indicated at a peak flow of 200 l/m”. A corresponding Instruction would indicate the actual drug,
route, dose, frequency, and so on. The informed patient might be reasonably expected to be able to
vary the dosage on his or her own within a dosage guideline explained by his/her GP.
In the ontology of FIGURE 19, Instructions are further categorised as Investigation and Intervention.
However, as for Evaluation, only a single key class, INSTRUCTION, is used to model all types of the
Instruction category, with archetypes defining the details of the Instruction. A second Entry subtype,
ACTION, is used to model the information recorded due to the execution of an Instruction by some
agent.
The following subsections describe Instruction and Action in some detail.
8.2.5.1 Requirements
The Instruction and Action classes are designed to satisfy the following requirements:
• All kinds of interventions, from simple medication orders to complex multi-drug courses
should be representable using the same model;
• Instructions should always have a narrative expression, with an optional machine-processi-
ble expression in cases where automation will be used;
• The freedom must exist to model any particular intervention in as much or little detail as
required by circumstances;
• Clinicians must be able to specify Instruction steps in their own terms, i.e. using terms like
“prescribe”, “dispense”, “start administering”, etc;
• Instructions representing diverse clinical workflows must be queryable in a standard way, so
that it can be ascertained what Instructions are ‘active’, ‘completed’ and so on for a patient;
• It should be possible to provide a coherent view of the state of execution of an Instruction
even if parts of it have been executed in different healthcare provider environments;
• It must be possible to record ad hoc actions in the record, i.e. acts for which no Instruction
was defined (at least in the EHR in question);
• Instructions must integrate with notification / alert services;
• An interoperable expression of computable workflow definitions of Instructions will be sup-
ported.
8.2.5.2 Design Principles
The design approach is based on four principles. The first is that the specification of an Instruction as
one or more Activities is distinguished from the information representing actions performed as a
result. This makes the model and resulting information instances clear to software designers and data
users. It also enables workflow engines to determine which parts of the specification have already
been executed, and allows for Actions actually performed to differ from those specified. The separa-
tion is realised in terms of the INSTRUCTION and ACTION classes and their helpers. Instances of the

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former specify an Instruction, while instances of the latter describe steps which have actually been
performed.
The second principle is the use of a standard instruction state machine (ISM) defining standardised
states and transitions for each Activity of an Instruction, no matter what its clinical meaning. The use
of standardised states means that the execution state of any given Activity can be characterised in
exactly the same way (e.g. ‘planned’, ‘active’, etc), and that it is therefore possible to query the EHR
and find out all interventions of any kind in a particular state. The ISM is formally modelled in
openEHR. The Instruction itself can also be considered to be in a state derived from the states of its
Activities. An informal description of this aggregate state machine is given below.
The third principle is to provide a way of mapping steps in any care pathway process (i.e. healthcare
business process) to states in the Instruction state machine. A care pathway process covers the
entirety of steps required to effect an Instruction, for example prescribing, booking, dispensing, refer-
ring, suspension etc. Any such step when performed leaves the relevant Instruction in one of the
states of the ISM.
The fourth principle is to support the expression of the formal workflow definition for an Instruction,
where full automation is required. It must be recognised that automation of most therapies and drug
admnistration, as well as other interventions like biopsies is minimal today, and is likely to remain so
for some time. This is for the simple reason that the cost of automating most tasks is prohibitive com-
pared to human execution, particularly when Instruction activities can often be executed by health-
care professionals already present for other reasons (e.g. ward nurses). It also has to be said that
serious research into the use of workflow automation in healthcare is only quite recent, and that so far,
there are no standard models for clinical workflow. In the openEHR approach to modelling workflow,
such uncertainty is dealt with in two ways. Firstly, formal workflow specification of an Instruction is
an optional addition to the base model of Instruction and Action classes, and is not required to obtain
a basic level of computability, including use of the ISM. Secondly, the formal expression of workflow
is in the form of parsable syntax rather than objects. This is a generally appropriate design choice,
since the safest and most convenient persistent form of of a complex formalism is the syntax form
rather than the parsed fine-grained object form; this both optimises storage and allows for changes in
the syntax over time.
8.2.5.3 Model Overview
Instruction definitions are modelled in terms of the INSTRUCTION and ACTIVITY classes, with
optional workflow attributes. These two classes carry the basic information relating to an Instruction,
with all formal workflow definition expressed in parsable syntax in the INSTRUCTION.wf_definition
attribute. An INSTRUCTION instance includes the narrative description of the Instruction, and a list of
ACTIVITY instances. It also includes all the attributes inherited from the CARE_ENTRY class, includ-
ing subject, participations and so on.
Many Instructions will have only one Activity, usually describing a medication to be administered
and its timing. Some will have more than one drug or therapy, such as the typical 3 drug Losec-HP
regime for treating ulcers, and multi-drug chemotherapy. The base Instruction model does not explic-
itly try to indicate the exact order, serial or parallel administration, or other dependencies, since the
knowledge of how to administer the drugs is known by the relevant clinicians, and/or contained in
published guidelines. However, the timing information in each Activity does indicate times, days and
the usual specifications of “with meals” etc. The timing information is also sufficient to specify a
three drug chemotherapy regime, by indicating which days each drug is administered on. It is only
when the Instruction is to be automated by a workflow engine that the full structure of the Activity
graph will be given. Activity instances may be completely absent from an Instruction, in which case

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only the narrative will be present. This will typically occur with imported legacy data which itself has
no structured representation of medications.
There are three possible levels of representation of an Instruction, as shown in FIGURE 22. These are
the minimal narrative-only level, a level with formal representation of Instruction activities by
ACTIVITY instances, and a level where a formal workflow definition can also be used. It is expected
that the vast majority of openEHR systems for the forseeable future will support only the minimal and
basic levels.
(narrative basic (computable (computable
minimal full workflow)
only) activities)
wf definition
INSTRUCTION INSTRUCTION INSTRUCTION
narrative: xxxx narrative: xxxx narrative: xxxx
activities activities

ACTIVITY ACTIVITY

ACTIVITY ACTIVITY

ACTIVITY ACTIVITY

FIGURE 22 Levels of Instruction representation

FIGURE 23 illustrates the correspondence between Instruction and Activity structures, and Action
objects that are created due to executing the instructions. Each Activity has a standard Instruction
State Machine logically associated with it, indicated in blue. When any step in an Instruction Activity
is executed within an ICT-supported environment, an ACTION instance describing what was done
should be created and committed to the EHR. In some cases, ad hoc Actions are created even when
there is no Instruction, such as by self-medicating patients and nurses reacting quickly to patient
changes. For such Actions, there is always a notional Activity understood by the health professional.

INSTRUCTION

ISM
ACTION ACTION
ACTIVITY 2aug2008 12::00 6aug2008 15::45

ACTIVITY ISM ACTION

4aug2008 10::30

ISM ACTION ACTION ACTION

ACTIVITY 1aug2008 10::30 3sep2008 10::40 1oct2008 10::30

ISM ACTION
13sep2008 11:23
= state transition

FIGURE 23 Correspondence of Actions to Instructions

All ACTIONs include the inherited CARE_ENTRY attributes, along with the time of being performed, a
description of what was performed, and an ISM_TRANSITION object indicating the state of the

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Activity (whether explicit in an Instruction or not). The current state of an Activity is thus found not
in the ACTIVITY instance but in the most recent ACTION instance for that Activity.
If the Action did correspond to an Instruction, it will also include an INSTRUCTION_DETAILS
instance, which indicates which Activity of which Instruction was executed, including workflow exe-
cution details if relevant.
Under this scheme, the state of each intervention happening to the patient can be ascertained by que-
rying, regardless of whether explicit Instructions exist..
Note particularly that Actions are often performed in a different provider location, or the home, rather
than the provider organisation responsible for the Instruction. Action objects for a given Instruction
can thus easily appear in multiple health record systems.
8.2.5.4 The Standard Instruction State Machine (ISM)
When an intervention defined by an Activity is unfolding in a clinical context, EHR users want to
know things such as the following:
• what is the current step in the Activity for the patient?
• for a given patient, what Activities are planned, active, suspended, completed?
• for the populations of patients, what is the state of a particular workflow, such as a recall, for
each one?
The approach chosen here to support such functionality is to define a standard instruction state
machine whose state transitions can be mapped to the steps of a specific care pathway, enabling it to
be used as a descriptive device for indicating the state of any Activity. The state machine is illustrated
in FIGURE 24. This state machine is the result of long term experience with clinical workflows and
act management systems. The states are as follows1.
INITIAL: initial state, prior to planning activity (default starting state for computable
representation of state machine).
PLANNED: the action has been described, but has not as yet been performed.
POSTPONED: the action has not been performed and will not without specific conditions being
met. Specifically, events and conditions that would normally ‘activate’ the instruction will
be ignored, until a restore event occurs.
SCHEDULED: the action will be performed at some designated future time, and has been booked
in a scheduling system.
CANCELLED: the action was defined, but was cancelled before being performed.
ACTIVE: the action is being performed according to its definition. The entire course of
medication or therapy corresponds to this state.
SUSPENDED: the action was begun, but has been stopped temporarily, and will not be restarted
until explicitly resumed.
ABORTED: the action began but was permanently terminated before normal completion.
COMPLETED: the action began and was completed normally.
EXPIRED: the time during which the action could have been relevant has expired; the action
may have completed, been cancelled, or never occurred.

1. The SCHEDULED state was inspired by Van de Velde & Degoulet , Fig 5.5 [15]

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 time_out

time_out
postponed_step suspended_step

time_out
POSTPONED SUSPENDED EXPIRED
scheduled_step
restore postpone
restore SCHEDULED resume time_out notify_
postpone suspend completed
start
schedule schedule
initiate start finish
INITIAL PLANNED ACTIVE COMPLETED

plan_step active_step
cancel cancel do
abort notify_aborted
start abort

CANCELLED ABORTED notify_cancelled

Transition legend
blue: normal state changing event red: time-out event
dark blue: normal non-state changing event magenta: post time-out event
green: scheduling-related transitions

FIGURE 24 openEHR standard Instruction State Machine

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States CANCELLED, ABORTED and COMPLETED are all terminal states. The EXPIRED state is a pseudo-
terminal state, from which transitions are allowed to proceed to any of the true terminal states, due to
information being received after the fact (such as a patient reporting that they did indeed finish a
course of antibiotics). However it is likely in the EHR that Instructions for many simple medications
will finish in the EXPIRED state and remain there.
The transitions are self-explanatory for the most part, however a few deserve comment. The start and
finish events correspond to situations when the administration is not instantaneous, as is the situation
with most medications. The do event is equivalent to the finish event occurring immediately after the
start event, corresponding to an instantaneous administration, completion of which puts the Activity
in the completed state. A single shot vaccination or patient taking a single tablet are typical examples.
The states PLANNED, POSTPONED, ACTIVE, SUSPENDED, each have a xxx_step transition which
return the state machine to the same state. Workflow steps that cause no transition are mapped to
these events and thus leave the Instruction in the same state. An example is a medication review,
which will leave the medication in the ACTIVE state, if the physician chooses to continue.
In the future, if delegation of an Instruction to another Instruction is required, nesting of a new
Instruction state machine within the Active state of a previous one might need to be supported.
The state machine states and transition names are defined in the openEHR terminology groups
“Instruction states” and “Instruction transitions” respectively.
8.2.5.5 Instruction Aggregate State
Each Activity within an Instruction constitutes a clinically identifiable medication or therapy of some
kind, while the Instruction usually corresponds to a grouping or combination of therapies designed to
treat an overall problem. Accordingly, the Instruction can be seen as having an aggregate state derived
from the states of the Activities, as shown in FIGURE 25. The rules for entering each aggregate state
are indicated in terms of the states of the constituent Activities.

INACTIVE

all suspended Activities cancelled

any Activity suspended
none active any Activity active

PRE-ACTIVE all Activities in a

any Activity active ACTIVE TERMINATED
terminal state

FIGURE 25 Instruction Aggregate State

This state machine is not formally modelled or coded in openEHR, although it may be useful to do so
within an application.
8.2.5.6 Careflow Process to State Machine Mapping
From a health professional’s point of view, a healthcare workflow, or ‘careflow’, consists of steps and
events designed to meet one or more goals. The steps are highly dependent on the particular kind of
workflow, and will usually be named in terms familiar to the relevant kinds of clinical professionals,
such as “prescribe”, “book”, “suspend” and so on (note that some of these names may be the same as
ISM transitions, but may or may not indicate the same thing). However, the need of users of health
information is to know what state the execution of an Instruction is in, regardless of which particular
careflow step might have just been executed. This is achieved by defining the mapping between the

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steps of a particular careflow to the states of the ISM in an Action archetype. When each Action cor-
responding to a particular Instruction Activity is performed, it will be known both which careflow
step it corresponds to and which ISM state the Activity is now in. The following table provides an
example of the mapping for a UK GP medication order workflow.
UK GP
State machine transition
Workflow Step
Start initiate (initial -> planned)
Prescribe planned_step (planned -> planned)
Dispense start (planned -> active)
Administer active_step (active -> active)
Request Renewal active_step (active -> active)
Re-issue active_step (active -> active)
Review active_step (active -> active)
Finish finish (active -> completed)
Cancel abort (active -> aborted)
Mappings like this are specified in the archetypes for the Instruction. When an ACTION instance is
committed to the EHR, the ISM_TRANSITION object records the step performed and the ISM state
and transition. The careflow step must be one of the steps from the corresponding Instruction. See
Relationship to Archetypes on page 65 for details of how archetypes are used to represent such map-
pings.
8.2.5.7 Relationship to Archetypes
Much of the semantics of particular Instructions and Actions derive from archetypes. Currently,
archetypes are used to define two groups of Instruction semantics. The first is the descriptions of
activities that are defined in Instructions (ACTIVITY.description) and executed in Actions
(ACTION.description). These descriptions are always of the same form for any given Instruction, and
it is highly desirable to have the same archetype component for both. An example is where the
description is of a medication, commonly consisting of a tree or list of ten or more elements describ-
ing the drug, its name, form, dose, route and so on. The same information structure is needed in the
Instruction, where it defines what is to be administered, and in the Action, where it describes what has
been administered. In any particular instance, there may be small differences in what was adminis-
tered (e.g. dose or route are modified) even though the archetype model will be the same for both.
In terms of archetypes therefore, definition of say two ACTIVITIES in an INSTRUCTION (see exam-
ple illustrated in FIGURE 26) will actually create separate archetypes of the Activity structures, each
of which will be one of the subtypes of ITEM_STRUCTURE (since this is the type of ACTIV-
ITY.description and ACTION.description). The archetypes will then be used by both the INSTRUC-
TION archetype and the ACTION archetype, via the archetype slot mechanism (i.e. the standard way
of composing archetypes from other archetypes; see use_archetype statements in FIGURE 26).
The second category of archetypable semantics is the correspondence between steps in a healthcare
business process and the standard instruction state machine, as described above. This mapping is an
archetype of the ism_transition attribute of an ACTION attribute, and therefore defines part of the
ACTION archetype. FIGURE 26 shows how logical archetype elements in the archetyped editor envi-
ronment corresponds to the resulting archetypes.

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openEHR-EHR-INSTRUCTION.xyz.v1
INSTRUCTION  {
activities  {
ACTIVITY  {
description  {
use_archetype ITEM_TREE  {}}}
Archetype Editor ACTIVITY  {
environment description  {
use_archetype ITEM_LIST  {}}}
GP Medication
Order
openEHR-EHR-ITEM_TREE.xxx.v1
Activity 1
description ISM mapping
123 step Tx openEHR-EHR-ACTION.xyz.v1
c
Q ACTION  {
c Txt description  {
Q use_archetype ITEM_TREE  {}}
ism_transition  {
Activity 2
ISM_TRANSITION  {
description ISM mapping
careflow_step  {}
123 step Tx current_state  {}
c }
Q ...
c Txt
Q
openEHR-EHR-ACTION.abc.v1
ACTION  {
description  {
use_archetype ITEM_LIST  {}}
ism_transition ...

openEHR-EHR-ITEM_LIST.yyy.v1 slot-filling

FIGURE 26 Instruction and Action Archetypes

8.2.6 Clinical Workflow Definition

Clinical workflows exist at multiple hierarchical levels, from the health system level (reduce diabetes
costs; manage obesity) to the fine-grained (asthmatic medication prescription for a particular patient).
At all levels, there are goals, actors and tasks designed to satisfy the goals. At a coarse-grained busi-
ness process level, workflows may be enacted by more than one actor, and may encompass the whole
cycle of Observation, Diagnosis, Instruction and Action. For example a workflow describing the steps
“prescribe”, “dispense”, “administer”, “repeat”, “review” and so on, around a medication order might
include GP, pharmacist, patient as actors. At the finer level of an actual drug or therapy administra-
tion, there is usually a single agent or group that performs a specific task, usually within one provider

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institution, or at home. The correspondence between workflows at these different levels and particu-
lar patients, rather than just categories of patients (e.g. all insulin-dependent diabetics), typically
increases at finer levels of granularity. Thus from the point of view of automation, it is likely to be
fine-grained workflows that have patient-specific definitions which would reasonably appear in the
EHR. Most typical medication administrations are in this category. How automated workflow defini-
tions at higher levels of organisational hierarchy are represented and coordinated with lower-level
automated workflows is known to be a difficult problem generally, and given that health computing is
generally more complex than most domains, implementation of distributed, coordinated (or “orches-
trated” or “choreographed”, to use the terms of the workflow community) clinical workflows is likely
to be some years off.
In this context, the possible scope for formal workflow definition in openEHR appears to be as fol-
lows.
• To enable the recording of links between openEHR Entries and workflow executions, e.g. a
particular guideline. This allows openEHR data to be integrated with coarse-grained non-
patient specific workflows.
• To support a standardised, interoperable representation of fine-grained formal workflow
definitions for activities like medication administration.
• To use formal workflow definitions only where automation is actually useful, and is likely
to be used. The kind of workflows that are likely to be worth automating are those which run
over several days, weeks or longer, i.e. where humans might easily forget to perform a step.
In these cases, the output of the workflow system will be reminders for humans to do certain
things at certain times, rather than direct machine automation of the task. Execution of such
workflow definitions will generate entries in “worklists” for staff or other agents to perform.
Examples include asthma drug management for a child and PAP recall management.
• To ensure that any workflow definition takes account of other existing clinical activities, i.e.
does not attempt to define all activities that might possibly be relevant. A simple example is
a workflow for asthma medication administration probably does not need to explicitly
model the taking of peak flow measurements, since this would normally be occurring any-
way.
There are various technical challenges with proposing a standard workflow formalism for clinical
use. Firstly, executable workflow definitions are essentially structured programs, similar to programs
in procedural languages, but with the addition of temporal logic operators, including alternative paths,
parallel paths, wait operations, and also references to outside data sources and services. Recent work
in clinical workflow modelling e.g. [9], [1], [5] appears to favour a structural (i.e. parse-tree)
approach to representation, due to the need to compute potential modifications to an executing work-
flow, including dropping, replacing and moving nodes. (Whether such “live” modification of execut-
ing workflows is realistic from the designer’s point of view might be questionable, since it means that
the design of each workflow has include every possible exceptional case at a detailed level.)
Secondly, the need to connect workflows to the outside world, i.e. data sources and services like noti-
fication and worklist management is crucial in making workflows and guidelines implementable.
This problem is probably the main weakness of all guideline and workflow languages to date, includ-
ing Arden, GLIF, and the various workflow languages such as those mentioned earlier.
The approach taken by the current release of openEHR in representing computable workflow is the
following.

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• Where used at all, formal workflow definitions are expressed in terms of syntax, not struc-
tures, since syntax is always a more appropriate representation for persistence (just as object
structures, i.e. parse trees are more appropriate for computation).
• Access to patient data items are expressed within the syntax as symbolic queries.
• Actions, such as requests to the notification service are represented as symbolic commands.
The entire definition of a workflow is expressed as an optional parsable string, in the wf_definition:
DV_PARSABLE attribute of the INSTRUCTION class. Any syntax may currently be used. A workflow
syntax is under development by the openEHR Foundation, which is designed to incorporate the rele-
vant features of current workflow models and research, while integrating it into the openEHR type
system and archetype framework. In particular, early versions of this syntax will show how patient
data access and service commands can be expressed.

8.3 Class Descriptions

8.3.1 ENTRY Class

CLASS ENTRY (abstract)

The abstract parent of all ENTRY subtypes. An ENTRY is the root of a logical item
of “hard” clinical information created in the “clinical statement” context, within a
clinical session. There can be numerous such contexts in a clinical session. Obser-
vations and other Entry types only ever document information captured/created in
Purpose the event documented by the enclosing Composition.
An ENTRY is also the minimal unit of information any query should return, since a
whole ENTRY (including sub-parts) records spatial structure, timing information,
and contextual information, as well as the subject and generator of the informa-
tion.
CEN Cluster OCC (ENV 13606:2000); Entry (prEN 13606:2006)

COAS::HealthRecordEntry and COAS::ObservationQualifier, a generic class

OMG HDTF
which is used to represent context attributes which are concretely modelled here.

Synapses The Item class is the closest match for Entry as described here.

GEHR *_CONTENT

HL7v3 Act

Inherit CONTENT_ITEM

Attributes Signature Meaning

language: CODE_PHRASE Mandatory indicator of the localised language

1..1 in which this Entry is written. Coded from
openEHR Code Set “languages”.

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CLASS ENTRY (abstract)

encoding: CODE_PHRASE Name of character set in which text values in

1..1 this Entry are encoded. Coded from openEHR
Code Set “character sets”.
subject: PARTY_PROXY Id of human subject of this ENTRY, e.g.:
• organ donor
1..1 • foetus
• a family member
• another clinically relevant person.
provider: PARTY_PROXY Optional identification of provider of the
information in this ENTRY, which might be:
• the patient
• a patient agent, e.g. parent, guardian
0..1 • the clinician
• a device or software
Generally only used when the recorder needs
to make it explicit. Otherwise, Composition
composer and other participants are assumed.
other_participations: Other participations at ENTRY level.
0..1
List <PARTICIPATION>
workflow_id: OBJECT_REF Identifier of externally held workflow engine
0..1 data for this workflow execution, for this sub-
ject of care.

Functions Signature Meaning

subject_is_self: Boolean Returns True if this Entry is about the subject
1..1 of the EHR, in which case the subject attribute
is of type PARTY_SELF.
Language_valid: language /= Void and then
code_set(Code_set_id_languages).has_code(language)
Encoding_valid: encoding /= Void and then code_set(Code_set_id_character
sets).has_code(encoding)
Invariants Subject_validity: subject_is_self implies subject.generating_type =
“PARTY_SELF”
Other_participations_valid: other_participations /= Void implies not
other_participations.is_empty
Archetype_root_point: is_archetype_root

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8.3.2 ADMIN_ENTRY Class

CLASS ADMIN_ENTRY

Entry subtype for administrative information, i.e. information about setting up the
Purpose clinical process, but not itself clinically relevant. Archetypes will define con-
tained information.
Used for admistrative details of admission, episode, ward location, discharge,
Use
appointment (if not stored in a practice management or appointments system).

Misuse Not used for any clinically significant information.

Inherit ENTRY

Attributes Signature Meaning

data: ITEM_STRUCTURE The data of the Entry; modelled in

1..1
archetypes.

Invariants Data_valid: data /= Void

8.3.3 CARE_ENTRY Class

CLASS CARE_ENTRY (abstract)

The abstract parent of all clinical ENTRY subtypes. A CARE_ENTRY defines proto-
Purpose
col and guideline attributes for all clinical Entry subtypes.

Inherit ENTRY

Attributes Signature Meaning

protocol: ITEM_STRUCTURE Description of the method (i.e. how) the infor-

mation in this entry was arrived at. For
OBSERVATIONs, this is a description of the
method or instrument used. For EVALUA-
TIONs, how the evaluation was arrived at. For
0..1 INSTRUCTIONs, how to execute the Instruc-
tion. This may take the form of references to
guidelines, including manually followed and
executable; knowledge references such as a
paper in Medline; clinical reasons within a
largercare process.
guideline_id: OBJECT_REF Optional external identifier of guideline creat-
0..1
ing this action if relevant

Invariants

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8.3.4 OBSERVATION Class

CLASS OBSERVATION

Entry subtype for all clinical data in the past or present, i.e. which (by the time it
Purpose is recorded) has already occurred. OBSERVATION data is expressed using the class
HISTORY<T>, which guarantees that it is situated in time.

OBSERVATION is used for all notionally objective (i.e. measured in some way)
Use
observations of phenomena, and patient-reported phenomena, e.g. pain.
Not used for recording opinion or future statements of any kind, including instruc-
MisUse
tions, intentions, plans etc.

CEN Cluster

GEHR G1_OBSERVATION_CONTENT, G1_SUBJECTIVE_CONTENT

HL7v3 Observation

Inherit CARE_ENTRY

Attributes Signature Meaning

data: The data of this observation, in the form of a his-

1..1 HISTORY tory of values which may be of any complexity.
<ITEM_STRUCTURE>

state: Optional recording of the state of subject of this

HISTORY observation during the observation process, in the
0..1 <ITEM_STRUCTURE> form of a separate history of values which may be
of any complexity. State may also be recorded
within the History of the data attribute.
Invariants Data_valid: data /= Void

8.3.5 EVALUATION Class

CLASS EVALUATION

Purpose Entry type for evaluation statements.

Used for all kinds of statements which evaluate other information, such as inter-
Use pretations of obvservations, diagnoses, differential diagnoses, hypotheses, risk
assessments, goals and plans.
Should not be used for actionable statements such as medication orders - these are
MisUse
represented using the INSTRUCTION type.

GEHR G1_SUBJECTIVE_CONTENT

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CLASS EVALUATION

HL7v3 In HL7v3, diagnoses etc seem to be Observations.

Inherit CARE_ENTRY

Attributes Signature Meaning

data: ITEM_STRUCTURE The data of this evaluation, in the form of a spatial

1..1
data structure.

Invariants Data_valid: data /= Void

8.3.6 INSTRUCTION Class

CLASS INSTRUCTION

Used to specify actions in the future. Enables simple and complex specifications
Purpose
to be expressed, including in a fully-computable workflow form.
Used for any actionable statement such as medication and therapeutic orders,
Use monitoring, recall and review. Enough details must be provided for the specifica-
tion to be directly executed by an actor, either human or machine.

Misuse Not to be used for plan items which are only specified in general terms.

GEHR G1_INSTRUCTION

Act subtype Substance_administration, any Act type which is really an action

HL7v3
specification (cf an Act in the past)

Inherit CARE_ENTRY

Attributes Signature Meaning

narrative: DV_TEXT Mandatory human-readable version of what the

1..1
Instruction is about.
activities: List of all activities in Instruction.
0..1
List<ACTIVITY>

expiry_time: Optional expiry date/time to assist determination

DV_DATE_TIME of when an Instruction can be assumed to have
0..1 expired. This helps prevent false listing of Instruc-
tions as Active when they clearly must have been
terminated in some way or other.
wf_definition: Optional workflow engine executable expression
0..1
DV_PARSABLE of the Instruction.
Narrative_valid: narrative /= Void
Invariants
Activities_valid: activities /= Void implies not activities.is_empty

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8.3.7 ACTIVITY Class

CLASS ACTIVITY

Defines a single activity within an Instruction, such as a medication administra-

Purpose
tion.

Inherit LOCATABLE

Attributes Signature Meaning

description: Description of the activity, in the form of an arche-

1..1
ITEM_STRUCTURE typed structure.
timing: DV_PARSABLE Timing of the activity, in the form of a parsable
1..1
string, such as an HL7 GTS or ISO8601 string.
action_archetype_id: Perl-compliant regular expression pattern,
String enclosed in ‘//’ delimiters, indicating the valid
1..1 archetype identifiers of archetypes for Actions
corresponding to this Activity specification.
Defaults to “/.*/”, meaning any archetype.
Description_valid: description /= Void
Timing_valid: timing /= Void
Invariants
Action_archteype_id_valid: action_archetype_id /= Void and
action_archetype_ids.is_empty

8.3.8 ACTION Class

CLASS ACTION
Used to record a clinical action that has been performed, which may have been ad
Purpose hoc, or due to the execution of an Activity in an Instruction workflow. Every
Action corresponds to a careflow step of some kind or another.

Inherit CARE_ENTRY

Attributes Signature Meaning

1..1 time: DV_DATE_TIME Point in time at which this action completed.

description: Description of the activity to be performed, in the

1..1
ITEM_STRUCTURE form of an archetyped structure.
ism_transition: Details of transition in the Instruction state
1..1
ISM_TRANSITION machine caused by this Action.
instruction_details: Details to of the Instruction that caused this Action
0..1
INSTRUCTION_DETAILS to be performed, if there was one.

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CLASS ACTION

Time_valid: time /= Void

Invariants Description_valid: description /= Void
Ism_transition_valid: ism_transition /= Void

8.3.9 INSTRUCTION_DETAILS Class

CLASS INSTRUCTION_DETAILS

Purpose Used to record details of the Instruction causing an Action.

Inherit PATHABLE

Attributes Signature Meaning

instruction_id: Reference to causing Instruction.

1..1
LOCATABLE_REF
activity_id: String Identifier of Activity within Instruction, in the
1..1
form of its archetype path.
wf_details: Various workflow engine state details, potentially
ITEM_STRUCTURE including such things as:
• condition that fired to cause this Action to be
done (with actual variables substituted);
0..1 • list of notifications which actually occurred (with
all variables substituted);
• other workflow engine state.
This specification does not currently define the
actual structure or semantics of this field.
Instruction_id_valid: instruction_id /= Void
Invariants
Activity_path_valid: activity_id /= Void and then not activity_id.is_empty

8.3.10 ISM_TRANSITION Class

CLASS ISM_TRANSITION

Model of a transition in the Instruction State machine, caused by a careflow step.

Purpose
The attributes document the careflow step as well as the ISM transition.

Inherit PATHABLE

Attributes Signature Meaning

current_state: The ISM current state. Coded by openEHR termi-

1..1
DV_CODED_TEXT nology group “Instruction states”.

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CLASS ISM_TRANSITION

transition: The ISM transition which occurred to arrive in the

0..1 DV_CODED_TEXT current_state. Coded by openEHR terminology
group “Instruction transitions”.
careflow_step: The step in the careflow process which occurred as
DV_CODED_TEXT part of generating this action, e.g. “dispense”,
“start_administration”. This attribute represents
0..1
the clinical label for the activity, as opposed to
current_state which represents the state machine
(ISM) computable form. Defined in archetype.
Current_state_valid: current_state /= Void and then
terminology(Terminology_id_openehr).
has_code_for_group_id(Group_id_instruction_states,
current_state.defining_code)
Invariants
Transition_valid: transition /= Void implies
terminology(Terminology_id_openehr).
has_code_for_group_id(Group_id_instruction_transitions, transi-
tion.defining_code)

8.4 Instance Structures

The following subsections illustrate typical Entry instance structures. For guidance on how to best
model particular clinical statements, see the archetype part of the openEHR knowledge repository
(http://svn.openehr.org/knowledge/project_page.htm).

8.4.1 OBSERVATION
Heartrate Measurement Series
FIGURE 27 illustrates three heartrate measurements over 10 minutes.

EVENT item ITEM_SINGLE

<ITEM_SINGLE> m = at0103(heartrate)
m = at0020 (event) n = “heartrate”
n = “0 min” v = 85 bpm
offset = 0
OBSERVATION
m = at0000 (heartrate) HISTORY EVENT item ITEM_SINGLE
n = “heartrate measure- data <ITEM_SINGLE>
ment” events <ITEM_SINGLE> m = at0103(heartrate)
m = at0005 (history) m = at0020 (event)
subject = 284395; “self” n = “heartrate”
n = “history” n = “5 min” v = 105 bpm
provider = 79798 origin = 10/05/2001 16:45:00 offset = 5 min
period = 5 min
EVENT item ITEM_SINGLE
<ITEM_SINGLE> m = at0103(heartrate)
m = at0020 (event) n = “heartrate”
n = “10 min” v = 122 bpm
offset = 10 min

FIGURE 27 Periodic series Instance Structure

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Blood Pressure with Protocol

FIGURE 28 illustrates a blood pressure observation with protocol.

OBSERVATION HISTORY<ITEM_LIST>
m = at0000 (blood pressure) m = at0022 (history)
data n = “history”
n = “blood pressure (sitting)”
origin = 2001-03-01 08:00:00
subject = 284395; “self”
provider = 79798 item

protocol EVENT<ITEM_LIST>
m = at0022 (any event)
ITEM_LIST n = “sample 1”
m = at0100 (BP protocol) time = .... 08:00:00
n = “BP protocol”
m = at0101 (device) v = [???:xxx(sphyg- item
n = “device” momanometer)] ITEM_LIST
m = at0102 (cuff) v = [???:xxx(wide)] m = at0200 (BP value)
n = “cuff” n = “BP value”
m = at0103 (position) v = [???:xxx(seated)] m = at0004(systolic BP) v = 110 mm[Hg]
n = “position” n = [snomed:xxx(systolic BP)]
m = at0005(diastolic BP) v = 72 mm[Hg]
n = [snomed:xxx(diastolic BP)]

FIGURE 28 Blood Pressure Measurement Observation

Glucose Tolerance Test

An oral glucose tolerance test takes the following form, although the number and timing of the blood
sugar levels may be slightly different in practice:
• challenge: no calories fasting from 12pm to 8am
• datum: BSL - 8am
• challenge: 75 g glucose orally - 8:01 am
• datum: BSL - 9 am
• datum: BSL - 10 am
OGTT is treated as a single clinical concept, and thus requires only one archetype. A typical instance
structure is shown in FIGURE 29. In this example, the three blood sugars are represented by EVENTs,
with the fasting and glucose challenges being expressed as states on the relevant events.

8.4.2 EVALUATION
Partial Asthma Management Plan
FIGURE 30 illustrates a partial asthma management plan in which monitoring (peak flow) with
dependent actions (review and admission to ER) and therapy (bronchodilator) are shown. In a com-
plete plan, symptom monitoring and other medications might be shown. The parts of the plan are

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EHR Information Model Entry Package
Rev 5.1.1

ITEM_LIST
m = at0003 (OGTT Protocol)
protocol
n = “OGTT Protocol”
m = at0005 (xxxx) v = xxxx
n = [snomed:xxx(xxxx)] ITEM_SINGLE
m = at0007 (BSL)
item n = “BSL”
EVENT v = 5 mmol/L
events <ITEM_SINGLE>
m = at0006 (event) ITEM_SINGLE
OBSERVATION n = “BSL fasting” state
m = at0010 (state)
m = at0000 (diagnostic test) time = .... 08:00:00 n = “post-challenge”
n = “GTT BSL” v = “post 8h fast”
subject = 284395; “self”
provider = 79798 ITEM_SINGLE
HISTORY m = at0007 (BSL)
item n = “BSL”
<ITEM_SINGLE> EVENT
v = 11 mmol/L
m = at0002 (history) <ITEM_SINGLE>
n = “BSL history” m = at0006 (event) ITEM_SINGLE
data origin = 2001-03-01 n = “BSL 1hr” state m = at0010 (state)
08:00:00 time = .... 09:00:00
period = 1h n = “post-challenge”
is_periodic = True v = “post 75g oral
glucose”

ITEM_SINGLE
m = at0007 (BSL)
item n = “BSL”
EVENT
v = 8 mmol/L
<ITEM_SINGLE>
m = at0006 (event) ITEM_SINGLE
n = “BSL 2hr” state
m = at0010 (state)
time = .... 10:00:00
n = “post-challenge”
v = “post 75g oral
glucose”
FIGURE 29 OGTT Instance Structure
linked to the root EVALUATION node via the links: Set<LINK> attribute inherited from the LOCATA-
BLE class.

source
LINK INSTRUCTION
m= target m = “xxxx”
“therapy” definition
n = “asthma medication”
EVALUATION
m = “plan” links
n = “asthma manage-
ment” ITEM_LIST
m = “monitoring details”
source n = “asthma monitoring”
LINK EVALUATION data m = “condition” v = “if pf < 40% see
m = “moni- m = “monitoring” n = “review” doctor”
target
toring” n = “monitoring” m = “drug attr” v = “if pf < 20%
n = “emergency” attend ER”

FIGURE 30 Partial Asthma Management Plan

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Entry Package EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

8.4.3 INSTRUCTION
Chained Medication Order
Often, a medication order for one drug consists of segments in which one or more of the administra-
tion details of route, form, frequency, dose etc is changed. In hospitals, intravenous antibiotics and
pain relief drugs may be followed by a tablet form of the same drug to be taken orally. Other exam-
ples are common in general practice, such as the following order:
• trade name = Panafcortelone; generic name = Prednisolone; form = tablets; dose = 25mg;
route = oral; freq = bd x 3 days; od x 2 days.
FIGURE 31 illustrates the instance structure for this Instruction. Note that the timing attribute of the
ACTIVITY instance is shown in human-readable form; in reality it will be a GTS string or similar (see
Timing Specification section of openEHR Data Types IM).

ITEM_LIST
m = “medication description”
n = “medication description”
m = “generic name” v = “prednisolone”
INSTRUCTION ACTIVITY n = “generic name”
m = “medication order” activities m = “medication adminis- description m = “trade name” v = “panefcortelone”
n = “asthma medication” tration” n = “trade name”
narrative = “Take twice a...” n = “prednisolone bd” m = “route” v = “oral”
timing = “bd x 3d; od x 2d” n = “route”
m = “dose” v = “25mg”
n = “dose”
m = “...” v = “...”
n = “...”

FIGURE 31 Chained medication order

Multi-drug Therapy
A common regime for treating duodenal ulcer and related complaints is using Losec with other drugs,
such as in the following combination:
• Losec 40 mg od x 4w or until no symptoms
• amoxicillin 500 mg 3td x 7d
• metronidizole 400 mg 3td x 7d

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EHR Information Model Entry Package
Rev 5.1.1

The Instruction for this therapy is illustrated in FIGURE 32.

ITEM_LIST
m = “medication description”
n = “medication description”
m = “generic name” v = “xxx”
INSTRUCTION ACTIVITY n = “generic name”
m = “medication order” activities m = “medication adminis- description m = “trade name” v = “Losec”
n = “asthma medication” tration” n = “trade name”
narrative = “Take twice a...” n = “Losec-HP losec” m = “route” v = “oral”
timing = “od x 4w” n = “route”
m = “dose” v = “40mg”
n = “dose”
m = “...” v = “...”
n = “...”

ITEM_LIST
m = “medication description”
n = “medication description”
m = “generic name” v = “amoxicillin”
ACTIVITY n = “generic name”
m = “medication adminis- description m = “trade name” v = “xxx”
tration” n = “trade name”
n = “Losec-HP amoxicil- m = “route” v = “oral”
lin” n = “route”
timing = “3td x 7d” m = “dose” v = “500mg”
n = “dose”
m = “...” v = “...”
n = “...”

ITEM_LIST
m = “medication description”
n = “medication description”
m = “generic name” v = “metronidizole”
ACTIVITY n = “generic name”
m = “medication adminis- description m = “trade name” v = “xxx”
tration” n = “trade name”
n = “Losec-HP met- m = “route” v = “oral”
ronidizole” n = “route”
timing = “3td x 7d” m = “dose” v = “400mg”
n = “dose”
m = “...” v = “...”
n = “...”

FIGURE 32 Multi-drug therapy Instruction

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Glossary EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

A Glossary

A.1 openEHR Terms

HCA Health care agent - any doctor, nurse or other recognised staff mem-
ber, or software or device
HCF Health care facility - any place where EHRs are kept
HCP Health care professional - any doctor, nurse or other recognised staff
member of an HCF

A.2 Clinical Terms

Care Pathway A global care management strategy for a patient, showing manage-
ment of health problems or issues in a time-based framework, similar
to a project management view of an engineering work.
Contribution
Episode A series of clinical events linked in time, such as a hospital admission
or a surgical episode.
Event
Extract
Issue A problem as identified by the patient, e.g. “inability to do exercise due
to breathing difficulty”; may be the object of wider health care, e.g.
social workers, physiotherapists etc.
Section
Problem A health problem of the patient, as identified by its underlying medical
cause, e.g. asthma; the object of medical care.
Composition

A.3 IT Terms
.NET
API Application programmer’s interface - the software interface to a library
or module.
COM Microsoft’s Component Object Model; designed to enable integration
of binary components obeying stated exported interfaces.
CORBA Common Object Request Broker Architecture - an object-oriented mid-
dleware architecture enabling the construction of 3-tier systems, in
which backend data providers (DBMSs etc) are known only by the
services they export to the network. CORBA is an open standard man-
aged by the Object Management Group (OMG).
DCOM Distributed version of Microsoft COM. Similar in its aim to CORBA.
J2EE
ODMG-93 A standard for object databases, which includes an object definition
language (ODL) for writing schemas, an object query language (OQL)
for querying, and several language bindings

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EHR Information Model References
Rev 5.1.1

B References

B.1 General
1 Barretto S A. Designing Guideline-based Workflow-Integrated Electronic Health Records.
2005. PhD dissertation, University of South Australia. Available at http://www.cis.uni-
sa.edu.au/~cissab/Barretto_PhD_Thesis_Revised_FINAL.pdf.
2 Berners-Lee T. "Universal Resource Identifiers in WWW". Available at
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt. This is a World-Wide Web RFC for global
identification of resources. In current use on the web, e.g. by Mosaic, Netscape and similar
tools. See http://www.w3.org/Addressing for a starting point on URIs.
3 Beale T. Archetypes: Constraint-based Domain Models for Future-proof Information Systems.
See http://www.deepthought.com.au/it/archetypes.html.
4 Beale T, Heard S. An Ontology-based Model of Clinical Information. 2007. pp760-764 Pro-
ceedings MedInfo 2007, K. Kuhn et al. (Eds), IOS Publishing 2007. See http://www.opene-
hr.org/publications/health_ict/MedInfo2007-BealeHeard.pdf.
5 Browne E D. Workflow Modelling of Coordinated Inter-Health-Provider Care Plans. 2005.
PhD dissertation, University of South Australia. Available at http://www.openehr.org/publica-
tions/workflow/t_browne_thesis_abstract.htm.
6 Elstein AS, Shulman LS, Sprafka SA. Medical problem solving: an analysis of clinical reason-
ing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1987.
7 Elstein AS, Schwarz A. Evidence base of clinical diagnosis: Clinical problem solving and di-
agnostic decision making: selective review of the cognitive literature. BMJ 2002;324;729-732.
8 Gray J, Reuter A. Transaction Processing Concepts and Techniques. Morgan Kaufmann 1993.
9 Müller R. Event-oriented Dnamic Adaptation of Workflows: Model, Architecture, and Imple-
mentation. 2003. PhD dissertation, University of Leipzig. Available at http://www.opene-
hr.org/publications/workflow/t_mueller_thesis_abstract.htm.
10 Rector A L, Nowlan W A, Kay S. Foundations for an Electronic Medical Record. The IMIA
Yearbook of Medical Informatics 1992 (Eds. van Bemmel J, McRay A). Stuttgart Schattauer
1994.
11 Rossi-Mori A, Consorti F. Assembling clinical information. Note sent to HL7v3 discussion list,
2001-04-19.
12 Sowa J F. Knowledge Representation: Logical, philosophical and Computational Foundations.
2000, Brooks/Cole, California.
13 Schloeffel P. (Editor). Requirements for an Electronic Health Record Reference Architecture.
International Standards Organisation, Australia; Feb 2002; ISO TC 215/SC N; ISO/WD 18308.
14 Sottile P.A., Ferrara F.M., Grimson W., Kalra D., and Scherrer J.R. The holistic healthcare in-
formation system. Toward an Electronic Health Record Europe 1999. Nov 1999; 259-266.
15 Van de Velde R, Degoulet P. Clinical Information Systems: A Component-Based Approach.
2003. Springer-Verlag New York.

Editors:{T Beale, S Heard}, {D Kalra, D Lloyd} Page 81 of 85 Date of Issue: 16 Aug 2008

© 2003-2007 The openEHR Foundation.

email: [email protected] web: http://www.openEHR.org
References EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

16 Weed LL. Medical records, medical education and patient care. 6 ed. Chicago: Year Book Med-
ical Publishers Inc. 1969.

B.2 European Projects

17 Dixon R., Grubb P.A., Lloyd D., and Kalra D. Consolidated List of Requirements. EHCR Sup-
port Action Deliverable 1.4. European Commission DGXIII, Brussels; May 200159pp Availa-
ble from http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk/HealthI/EHCR-SupA/del1-4v1_3.PDF.
18 Dixon R, Grubb P, Lloyd D. EHCR Support Action Deliverable 3.5: "Final Recommendations
to CEN for future work". Oct 2000. Available at http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk/HealthI/EHCR-
SupA/documents.htm.
19 Dixon R, Grubb P, Lloyd D. EHCR Support Action Deliverable 2.4 "Guidelines on Interpreta-
tion and implementation of CEN EHCRA". Oct 2000. Available at ht-
tp://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk/HealthI/EHCR-SupA/documents.htm.
20 Ingram D. The Good European Health Record Project. Laires, Laderia Christensen, Eds. Health
in the New Communications Age. Amsterdam: IOS Press; 1995; pp. 66-74.
21 Lloyd D, et al. EHCR Support Action Deliverable 3.1&3.2 “Interim Report to CEN”. July
1998. Available at http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk/HealthI/EHCR-SupA/documents.htm.
22 Deliverable 4: GEHR Requirements for Clinical Comprehensiveness. GEHR Project 1992
23 Deliverable 7: Clinical Functional Specifications. GEHR Project 1993
24 Deliverable 8: Ethical and legal Requirements of GEHR Architecture and Systems. GEHR
Project 1994
25 Deliverable 19,20,24: GEHR Architecture. GEHR Project 30/6/1995
26 Grimson W. and Groth T. (Editors). The Synapses User Requirements and Functional Specifi-
cation (Part B). EU Telematics Application Programme, Brussels; 1996; The Synapses Project:
Deliverable USER 1.1.1b.
27 Kalra D. (Editor). The Synapses User Requirements and Functional Specification (Part A). EU
Telematics Application Programme, Brussels; 1996; The Synapses Project: Deliverable USER
1.1.1a. 6 chapters, 176 pages.
28 Kalra D. (Editor). Synapses ODP Information Viewpoint. EU Telematics Application Pro-
gramme, Brussels; 1998; The Synapses Project: Final Deliverable. 10 chapters, 64 pages.

B.3 CEN
29 ENV 13606-1 - Electronic healthcare record communication - Part 1: Extended architecture.
CEN/ TC 251 Health Informatics Technical Committee.
30 ENV 13606-2 - Electronic healthcare record communication - Part 2: Domain term list. CEN/
TC 251 Health Informatics Technical Committee.
31 ENV 13606-3 - Electronic healthcare record communication - Part 3: Distribution rules. CEN/
TC 251 Health Informatics Technical Committee.

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EHR Information Model References
Rev 5.1.1

32 ENV 13606-4 - Electronic Healthcare Record Communication standard Part 4: Messages for
the exchange of information. CEN/ TC 251 Health Informatics Technical Committee.

B.4 GEHR Australia

33 Heard S. GEHR Project Australia, GPCG Trial. Available at http://www.ge-
hr.org/gpcg/ehra.htm.
34 Beale T, Heard S. GEHR Technical Requirements. See http://www.gehr.org/technical/require-
ments/gehr_requirements.html.

B.5 HL7v3
35 Schadow G, McDonald C J. The Unified Code for Units of Measure, Version 1.4, April 27,
2000. Regenstrief Institute for Health Care, Indianapolis. See http://aurora.rg.iu-
pui.edu/UCUM
36 Schadow G, Russler D, Mead C, Case J, McDonald C. HL7 version 3 deliverable: The Unified
Service Action Model : Documentation for the clinical area of the HL7 Reference Information
Model. (Revision 2.4+).
37 Schadow G, Biron P. HL7 version 3 deliverable: Version 3 Data Types. (DRAFT Revision 1.0).

B.6 OMG
38 CORBAmed document: Person Identification Service. (March 1999).
(Authors?)
39 CORBAmed document: Clinical Observations Access Service. (Jan 2000)
3M, Care Data Systems, CareFlow/Net, HBO & C, LANL, and others.
40 CORBAmed document: Lexicon Query Service. (March 1999)
(Authors?)

B.7 Software Engineering

41 Meyer B. Object-oriented Software Construction, 2nd Ed.
Prentice Hall 1997
42 Walden K, Nerson J. Seamless Object-oriented Software Architecture.
Prentice Hall 1994
43 Gamma E, Helm R, Johnson R, Vlissides J. Design patterns of Reusable Object-oriented Soft-
ware
Addison-Wesley 1995
44 Fowler M. Analysis Patterns: Reusable Object Models
Addison Wesley 1997
45 Fowler M, Scott K. UML Distilled (2nd Ed.)

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References EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

Addison Wesley Longman 2000

46 Booch G, Rumbaugh J, Jacobsen I. The Unified Modelling Language User Guide. Addison es-
ley 1999.

B.8 Resources
47 Arden Syntax. http://www.cpmc.columbia.edu/arden/
48 Asbru / The Asgaard Project. http://smi-web.stanford.edu/projects/asgaard/
49 Digital Imaging ad Communications in Medicine (DICOM). http://medical.nema.org/di-
com.html.
50 EON ref required
51 GLIF (Guideline Interchange Format). http://www.glif.org/.
52 IANA - http://www.iana.org/.
53 ProForma language for decision support. http://www.acl.icnet.uk/lab/proforma.html.
54 SynEx project, UCL. http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk/HealthI/SynEx/.

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EHR Information Model
Rev 5.1.1

END OF DOCUMENT

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