openEHR Architecture Overview

Acknowledgements

The work reported in this paper has been funded in by the following organisations:

  • University College London - Centre for Health Informatics and Multi-professional Education (CHIME);

  • Ocean Informatics.

Special thanks to David Ingram, Emeritus Professor of Health Informatics at UCL who provided a vision and collegial working environment ever since the days of GEHR (1992).

Trademarks

  • 'openEHR' is a trademark of the openEHR Foundation

  • 'Java' is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation

  • 'Microsoft' and '.Net' are trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation

Preface

Purpose

This document provides an overview of the openEHR architecture in terms of a model overview, key global semantics, deployment and integration architectures, relationship to published standards, and finally the approach to building Implementation Technology Specifications (ITSs). Semantics specific to each information, archetype and service model are described in the relevant specification.

The intended audience includes:

  • Standards bodies producing health informatics standards;

  • Academic groups using openEHR;

  • The open source healthcare community;

  • Solution vendors.

This document is the key technical overview of openEHR, and should be read before all other technical documents.

Status

This specification is in the STABLE state. The development version of this document can be found at https://specifications.openehr.org/releases/BASE/latest/architecture_overview.html.

Known omissions or questions are indicated in the text with a 'to be determined' paragraph, as follows:

TBD: (example To Be Determined paragraph)

Feedback

Feedback may be provided on the technical mailing list.

Issues may be raised on the specifications Problem Report tracker.

To see changes made due to previously reported issues, see the BASE component Change Request tracker.

Amendment Record

Issue Details Raiser, Implementer Completed

BASE Release 1.1.0

1.2.2

SPECBASE-21. Update Architecture Overview with new LANG component, and improved explanation of ITS. Improve package structure description. Replace some diagrams.

T Beale

26 Nov 2018

SPECRM-80. Improve description of system_id field in EHR, AUDIT_DETAILS and FEEDER_AUDIT_DETAILS.

H Frankel,
T Beale

SPECRM-78: Improve documentation on 'plain text' EHR URIs.

H Frankel

22 Nov 2018

SPECBASE-18. Update text in Common IM to latest openPGP specification.

P Pazos

17 May 2018

1.2.1

SPECBASE-16. Update Architecture Overview with current high-level elements. Section 5.3.4: Added text indicating BMM usage and alternatives. Section 11.2.4.2: Added JSON format version of example.

E Sundvall, S Iancu

09 Nov 2017

SPECBASE-15. Add Foundation Types specification to BASE;
SPECBASE-7. Add Base Types specification to BASE.
SPECBASE-16. Update Architecture Overview with current high-level elements.
Section 2: Updated overview diagram and description to be based on 'components' as per current specifications program;
Section 5: Updated package diagrams to exported diags from BASE, RM, AM, SM UML components;
Section 7.4.1: small updates to statements to make them more current; fixed some references to ISO standards.

T Beale

09 Sep 2017

BASE Release 1.0.3

1.2.0

SPECRM-33. Clarify specification of DV_EHR_URI scheme. (solves SPECPR-48, SPECPR-50)

H Frankel,
E Sundvall,
B Lah,
S Iancu

07 Dec 2015

SPECRM-27. Relax unique name rule in LOCATABLE: change text of sections 11.2.2 and 11.2.4.

H Frankel,
T Beale

SPECRM-25. Corrections to Architecture Overview specification: text in section 9.2.2 about LOCATABLE_REF referred to wrong specification.

T Beale

SPECRM-28. Corrections to EHR and Common IM documentation.
SPECPR-2. Changes to Architecture Overview section 5.2.1.

R Erens

Release 1.0.2

1.1.1

SPEC-249. Paths and locators minor errors in Architecture Overview and Common IM. Typos corrected in sections 9.2.2 and 11.3.

C Ma,
T Beale
R Chen

13 Nov 2008

SPEC-257: Correct minor typos and clarify text. Section 9.2.1 para 1 line 2: with -→ within.

C Ma,
R Chen,
T Cook

SPEC-284: Correct inconsistencies in naming of term_definitions, constraint_definitions, term_bindings, constraint_bindings attributes in XML-schema and specifications.

A Torrisi

Release 1.0.1

1.1

SPEC-200: Correct package names in RM diagram.

D Lloyd

12 Apr 2007

SPEC-130: Correct security details in LOCATABLE and ARCHETYPED classes.

T Beale

SPEC-203: Release 1.0 explanatory text improvements. Improved path explanation. Slight re-ordering of main headings.

T Beale
G Grieve
T Shannon
H van der Linden

Path shortcuts.

H Frankel

Added configuration management and versioning material from Common IM.
Added section on ontological landscape.
Added section on aims.
Added section on systems architectures.
Added section on security.
Added section on system integration.

T Beale

Added section on terminology.

T Beale
S Heard

Release 1.0

1.0

Initial Writing - content taken from Roadmap document.
SPEC-147. Make DIRECTORY Re-usable
SPEC-167. Move AOM description package to resource package in Common IM.
SPEC-185. Improved EVENT model.

T Beale

29 Jan 2006

Sections