Enabling smooth integration between HL7 CDA and medical guidelines on the web with an initial focus on women’s health in general practice

Since the 1990s many researchers have proposed frameworks for modelling clinical guidelines and protocols in a computer-interpretable and computer-executable format. Nowadays, the various guideline representation languages and related frameworks also need to address compatibility with healthcare information systems that aim to be interoperable on nation-wide and even international-levels. This paper presents a simulation framework and computational test-bed, called V.A.F. Framework, that makes use of health level seven (HL7) and takes advantages of both CommonKADS methodology and Semantic Web technologies (OWL, SWRL, and OWL-S) to express a wide-spectrum of medical guidelines in an executable form compatible with HL7 clinical document architecture (CDA). To validate the proposal, which goes beyond interoperability of eHealth services and explores how to open up new capabilities in areas such as decision support and patient safety alerts, the research has focused on medical guidelines related to womenpsilas health in general practice.