Flexible yet Efficient Management of Electronic Health Records

This paper presents an approach for managing electronic health record (EHR) data in a flexible yet efficient way. The data model is based on the HL7 Reference Information Model. If clinical requirements change, the data model can be extended by editing a schema spreadsheet. A code generator and the use of state-of-the-art ORM tools allow consistency between EHR application and database. Due to the genericity of the approach, cross-cutting concerns like concurrency control and auditing can be implemented widely. The approach has been implemented in form of an EHR framework. As a proof of concept, a subset of a commercial melanoma care EHR application has successfully been implemented.