Integration framework for medication-use process

Medication errors harm at least 1.5 million people every year in United States, according to the report issued by Committee on Identifying and Preventing Medication Errors in 2007. Medication use system consists of many sub-systems including prescription entry systems and drug libraries. Integrating medication sub-systems and automating the medication process enhance medication compliance and prevent medication errors, caused by communication mistakes between care-takers and medical institutes. In this paper, we present the workflow-based integration framework for medication use. In the framework, new sub-systems including medication authoring tools and intelligent medication dispensers are designed to automate the process. To integrate the complex and heterogeneous sub-systems, we develop an integration framework and make use of workflow engines. The integration framework defines how each subsystem describes itself and how the each sub-system triggers succeeding actions. Workflow-based approach is used to dispatch the works among the distributed sub-systems and provides the flexibility to the system.