Publications by Erik Sundvall

Background: Exchange of Electronic Health Record (EHR) data between systems from different suppliers is a major challenge. EHR communication based on archetype methodology has been developed by openEHR and CEN/ISO. The experience of using archetypes in deployed EHR systems is quite limited today. Currently deployed EHR systems with large user bases have their own proprietary way of representing clinical content using various models. This study was designed to investigate the feasibility of representing EHR content models from a regional EHR system as openEHR archetypes and inversely to convert archetypes to the proprietary format. Methods: The openEHR EHR Reference Model (RM) and Archetype Model (AM) specifications were used. The template model of the Cambio COSMIC, a regional EHR product from Sweden, was analyzed and compared to the openEHR RM and AM. This study was focused on the convertibility of the EHR semantic models. A semantic mapping between the openEHR RM/AM and the COSMIC template model was produced and used as the basis for developing prototype software that performs automated bidirectional conversion between openEHR archetypes and COSMIC templates. Results: Automated bi-directional conversion between openEHR archetype format and COSMIC template format has been achieved. Several archetypes from the openEHR Clinical Knowledge Repository have been imported into COSMIC, preserving most of the structural and terminology related constraints. COSMIC templates from a large regional installation were successfully converted into the openEHR archetype format. The conversion from the COSMIC templates into archetype format preserves nearly all structural and semantic definitions of the original content models. A strategy of gradually adding archetype support to legacy EHR systems was formulated in order to allow sharing of clinical content models defined using different formats. Conclusion: The openEHR RM and AM are expressive enough to represent the existing clinical content models from the template based EHR system tested and legacy content models can automatically be converted to archetype format for sharing of knowledge. With some limitations, internationally available archetypes could be converted to the legacy EHR models. Archetype support can be added to legacy EHR systems in an incremental way allowing a migration path to interoperability based on standards.

IT support for home health care is an expanding area within health care IT development. Home health care differs from other in- or outpatient care delivery forms in a number of ways, and thus, the introduction of home health care applications must be based on a rigorous analysis of necessary requirements to secure safe and reliable health care. This article reports early experiences from the development of a home health care application based on emerging technologies. A prototype application for the follow-up of diabetes patients is presented and discussed in relation to a list of general requirements on home health care applications.

Free-text queries are natural entries into the exploration of complex terminology systems. The way search results are presented has impact on the users ability to grasp the overall structure of the system. Complex hierarchies like the one used in SNOMED CT, where nodes have multiple parents (IS-A) and several other relationship types, makes visualization challenging. This paper presents a prototype, Term Viz, applying well known methods like "focus+context" and self-organizing layouts from the fields of Information Visualization and Graph Drawing to terminologies like SNOMED CT and ICD-10. The user can simultaneously focus on several nodes in the terminologies and then use interactive animated graph navigation and semantic zooming to further explore the terminology systems without loosing context. The prototype, based on Open Source Java components, demonstrates how a number of Information Visualisation methods can aid the exploration of medical terminologies with millions of elements and can serve as a base for further development.