Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-2011

Keywords

Computer Assisted Drug Therapy, Decision Support System, Electronic Medical Record, Medical Record, Methodology, Organization and Management, Patient Care, Practice Guideline. Standards

Comments

This article is also availabe from http://www.biomedcentral.com

Abstract

BACKGROUND: In this paper, we give an overview of methadone treatment in Ireland and outline the rationale for designing an electronic health record (EHR) with extensibility, interoperability and decision support functionality. Incorporating several international standards, a conceptual model applying a problem orientated approach in a hierarchical structure has been proposed for building the EHR.

METHODS: A set of archetypes has been designed in line with the current best practice and clinical guidelines which guide the information-gathering process. A web-based data entry system has been implemented, incorporating elements of the paper-based prescription form, while at the same time facilitating the decision support function.

RESULTS: The use of archetypes was found to capture the ever changing requirements in the healthcare domain and externalises them in constrained data structures. The solution is extensible enabling the EHR to cover medicine management in general as per the programme of the HRB Centre for Primary Care Research.

CONCLUSIONS: The data collected via this Irish system can be aggregated into a larger dataset, if necessary, for analysis and evidence-gathering, since we adopted the openEHR standard. It will be later extended to include the functionalities of prescribing drugs other than methadone along with the research agenda at the HRB Centre for Primary Care Research in Ireland.

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

Citation

Xiao L, Cousins G, Courtney B, Hederman L, Fahey T, Dimitrov BD. Developing an electronic health record (EHR) for methadone treatment recording and decision support. BMC Medical Informatics Decision Making. 2011;11:5.

PubMed ID

21284849

DOI Link

10.1186/1472-6947-11-5