Enabling medical research on clinically collected data using openEHR archetypes

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of the thesis is to providing a high quality research repository based on openEHR platform and assessing the feasibility. This involves transforming the data to openEHR data format, annotating, and visualizing data. Method: We used the design paradigm rooted in the engineering discipline to build the system and assessed the feasibility using a criteria which uses the effect of the solution and the effort needed to build the system. Result: We mapped the extracted data to openEHR platform using flat archetype. We queried back this data and transformed it to another composition instance based on design archetypes, which can be used as a gateway to annotate data. The data in the repository was visualized using windows form application. Conclusion: The overall feasibility of developing a research repository using openEHR platform showed high potential effect, but also medium effort attached to it. The system provides a standardized and structured high quality data. However, developing the system in addition to internal resource needs a strong collaboration with healthcare workers. The process of annotating and expanding the data using archetypes could also need some time, but this approach is easier when compared with traditional methods used to annotate data.