Requirements

This section describes detailed formal requirements of the GDL2 language.

Clinical information models

  • It shall be possible to express clinical decision logic using standards-based clinical models such as openEHR Archetypes or HL7 FHIR Resources both as input and output of the rule execution;

  • The design shall support common data types underpinning standard clinical models.

Natural language independence

  • It shall be possible to author meta-data of the rules in any natural language;

  • The rule expressions shall be independent of any natural language;

  • The name of individual rules shall be independent of any natural language;

  • It shall be possible to add multiple language translations without changing the logical definitions in the rules.

Reference terminology support

  • It shall be possible to bind a locally defined term in the guideline to a single concept defined in one or several external reference terminologies;

  • It shall be possible to bind a locally defined term in the guideline to multiple concepts defined by external reference terminologies;

  • It shall be possible to bind a locally defined term in the guideline to externally defined terminology ref-sets.

Identification and meta-data

  • Each rule shall be uniquely identified for a given name space;

  • Each rule shall have explicit version information as part of the guideline identifier;

  • There shall be sufficient meta-data about the guideline with regards to authorship, purpose of the rules, version information and relevant clinical references.

Rule Execution

  • It shall be possible to chain the execution of several guidelines in order to support complex decision making process;

  • It shall be possible to reuse the guidelines in different decision support applications in different clinical contexts.

Complex Output Objects

  • It shall be possible to support complex hierarchical objects as output of the rule execution;

  • It shall be possible to alter the structure of the output objects based on the rule executions;

  • It shall be possible to alter the details of the output objects based on the rule executions;

  • It shall support standard or non-standard based output format.

Local variables

  • It shall be possible to use locally defined variables to hold intermediate results of the rule execution;

  • It shall be possible to use such local variables without dependent on external clinical models.