A case study in interoperable support for collaborative community healthcare

This paper describes a two year case study in the engineering and deployment of a Clinical Information System (CIS) called Palliative Care Information System (PAL-IS) for managing and monitoring team-based community care of palliative patients. The case study followed the methodology, architecture and ontology proposed in previous work to address workflow, behavioral and technology issues for CIS that support collaborative, mobile, and accessible healthcare. Both PAL-IS and the methodology used in its development are evaluated. The results give fresh insight into interoperability issues which complicate CIS design. They also highlight the importance of reporting requirements as a major driver for investment in CIS and a critical factor in CIS design.