A Two-Level Identity Model to Support Interoperability of Identity Information in Electronic Health Record Systems
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Technological University Dublin ARROW@TU Dublin Doctoral Engineering 2016 A Two-Level Identity Model To Support Interoperability of Identity Information in Electronic Health Record Systems. Xu Chen Technological University Dublin, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/engdoc Part of the Electrical and Electronics Commons, and the Other Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons Recommended Citation Chen, Xu (2016) A two-level identity model to support interoperability of identity information in electronic health record systems. Doctoral Thesis, Technological University Dublin. doi:10.21427/D7XG72 This Theses, Ph.D is brought to you for free and open access by the Engineering at ARROW@TU Dublin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral by an authorized administrator of ARROW@TU Dublin. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License A Two-level Identity Model To support interoperability of identity information in electronic health record systems Xu Chen This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supervisor: Dr. Damon Berry School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Dublin Institute of Technology May 2016 ABSTRACT The sharing and retrieval of health information for an electronic health record (EHR) across distributed systems involves a range of identified entities that are possible subjects of documentation (e.g., specimen, clinical analyser). Contemporary EHR specifications limit the types of entities that can be the subject of a record to health professionals and patients, thus limiting the use of two level models in healthcare information systems that contribute information to the EHR. The literature describes several information modelling approaches for EHRs, including so called “two level models”. These models differ in the amount of structure imposed on the information to be recorded, but they generally require the health documentation process for the EHR to focus exclusively on the patient as the subject of care and this definition is often a fixed one. In this thesis, the author introduces a new identity modelling approach to create a generalised reference model for sharing archetype-constrained identity information between diverse identity domains, models and services, while permitting reuse of published standard-based archetypes. The author evaluates its use for expressing the major types of existing demographic reference models in an extensible way, and show its application for standards-compliant two-level modelling alongside heterogeneous demographics models. This thesis demonstrates how the two-level modelling approach that is used for EHRs could be adapted and reapplied to provide a highly-flexible and expressive means for representing subjects of information in allied health settings that support the healthcare process, such as the laboratory domain. By relying on the two level modelling approach for representing identity, the proposed design facilitates cross-referencing and disambiguation of certain demographics standards and information models. The work also demonstrates how it can also be used to represent additional clinical identified entities such as specimen and order as subjects of clinical documentation. DECLARATION I certify that this thesis which I now submit for examination for the award of PhD, is entirely my own work and has not been taken from the work of others, save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. This thesis was prepared according to the regulations for postgraduate study by research of the Dublin Institute of Technology and has not been submitted in whole or in part for another award in any other third level institution. The work reported on in this thesis conforms to the principles and requirements of the DIT’s guidelines for ethics in research. Xu Chen Signature Date I would like to dedicate this thesis to my loving parents, my wife and my son from whom I have got unconditional love and ongoing support over the years. (Âd∫á.Ÿ⌘Ò1Ñ6Õåª?⇥ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would never have been able to complete this thesis without the guidance and persistent help of my principal supervisor Damon Berry. He was always there cheering me up and sharing his expertise and experiences in study and life. I would like to express the appreciation to the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and the Graduate Research School, for their support and understanding. I am grateful for the support of all co-authors who made contributions to my articles: William Grimson, Gaye Stephens. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues who were willing to share their knowledge during those years in the lab: Sheng Yu, Fabrice Camous, Mark Nolan, Brian Madden, Jack Keegan, James Condron. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my parents, for their faith in me and providing me with unending encouragement and support. Finally, I want to say a special thanks to my dear wife who has been doing the utmost to support me and the family as the work let us have to apart in the past several years. CONTENTS List of figures xii List of tables xv List of listings xvi Acronyms xvii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background . 1 1.2 EHR and e-Health technologies . 2 1.3 Identity in healthcare . 5 1.4 Research problems and challenges . 6 1.4.1 Identity Crisis . 7 1.4.2 Lack of interoperability for sharing identities . 9 1.4.3 Limitation of the secondary use of identity . 9 1.5 Aims and objectives . 10 1.6 Intended contributions of this work . 13 1.7 Organisation of the chapters in this thesis . 15 2 Background 17 2.1 Introduction to this chapter . 17 2.1.1 Standards development organisations in e-Health . 18 Contents 2.2 Key terms defined about identities in EHR . 21 2.2.1 The idea of identity in information systems . 21 2.2.2 Identified Entity . 23 2.2.3 Unique Identifier and traits . 31 2.2.4 Identity Domain . 33 2.2.5 Feeder systems for the EHR . 33 2.3 The evolution of shared identity models . 35 2.3.1 Unstructured and semi-structured models . 35 2.3.2 Static / single-level models . 36 2.3.3 Two-level models . 40 2.3.4 Function models for sharing identity in healthcare . 43 2.3.5 Demographics Service - a special case of identity sharing . 46 2.4 Interoperability specifications in healthcare . 48 2.4.1 Requirements for the EHR . 48 2.4.2 EHR Communication . 49 2.4.3 Health Level Seven (HL7) v2.x and v3 Models . 50 2.4.4 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) . 51 2.4.5 Identity-related specifications for person . 51 2.5 Technical specifications for security and access control . 53 2.6 Summary . 54 3 Literature review: Integrated use of shared identity models with EHRs 56 3.1 Integrated use of shared identity models . 56 3.1.1 EN13606 Revision – introducing two level models for demographics 58 3.1.2 Clinical Information Modeling Initiative (CIMI) . 59 3.1.3 Fast Health Interoperable Resources (FHIR) . 59 3.1.4 openEHR AOM/ADL 2 . 60 vii Contents 3.2 Data integration of shared identity data . 62 3.2.1 Granularity versus abstraction . 62 3.2.2 Mediated schema . 63 3.2.3 Object Relational Mapping . 66 3.3 Ontology-based modelling in e-Health . 68 3.4 Federation of identity . 72 3.5 Related topics . 75 3.5.1 Object-role Models . 75 3.5.2 Security and Access Control . 76 3.5.3 Clinical Terminology . 82 3.5.4 Health Natural Language Processing . 83 3.5.5 Clinical modelling tools and projects . 84 3.6 Summary . 85 4 Desgin and evaluation strategy for a generalised identity model 87 4.1 Overview . 87 4.2 Challenge of the sharing heterogeneous identity information in healthcare 89 4.2.1 Investigation of the main existing demographics models . 89 4.2.2 Access control of different subject of information . 92 4.2.3 Ownership of the ideal EHRs . 93 4.3 A generalised identity model . 95 4.3.1 Reasons for the proposed approach . 95 4.3.2 The features of a generalised identity model . 96 4.3.3 Derivation of the GIRM from features of existing models . 99 4.4 The evaluation strategy of the GIRM . 103 4.4.1 Initial evaluation of the GIRM . 104 viii Contents 4.4.2 Evaluating the instance of the GIRM for exchanging identity in- formation . 106 4.4.3 Application of the GIRM for identifying laboratory information . 106 4.5 Summary . 108 5 Evaluation of the two-level identity approach 110 5.1 Overview . 110 5.1.1 Initial evaluation . 110 5.1.2 Further evaluation . 111 5.2 Evaluating the generalised RM approach . 112 5.2.1 Methods of the initial evaluation . 113 5.2.2 Investigation 1: Measuring the level of abstraction and constraint of GIRM . 113 5.2.3 Investigation 2: Expressing RM to support existing demographic models . 116 5.2.4 Investigation 3: Making EN13606 demographics extensible using GIRM . 118 5.2.5 Investigation 4: Building GIRM archetypes for the demographics model . 120 5.2.6 The results of extended EN13606 demographics RM using GIRM 122 5.3 Application 1: Exchanging archetype-constrained identity data . 125 5.3.1 Observations . 127 5.4 Summary . 131 6 Application of the GIRM for identifying laboratory information 133 6.1 Overview . 133 6.2 Motivation . 135 6.3 Methods of applying GIRM to LIMS . 136 ix Contents 6.3.1 Evaluation Setting . 138 6.4 Results . 139 6.4.1 Investigation 5: Difference and similarity between 90101 and ASTM139 6.4.2 Application 2: Mapping/overlapping between the fields of specimen143 6.4.3 Application 3: Applying the GIRM to the database of open source LIMS .