The Research Of Model-driven Development Method Of Healthcare Information System Integration

With the development of hospital informatics, various healthcare information systems have been used. Integration of heterogeneous healthcare information systems from different vendors can make them collaboration and achieve information sharing, which optimize hospital process, improve medical services. Currently, the mainstream integration technology is integration engine, while healthcare information system integration based on this technology has problems as follows:(1) The descriptions of integration requirements are incomplete and abnormal. This results in delay of the whole project cycle, since all parties involved in have to communicate frequently to perform requirements analysis.(2) Integration requirements analysis and practical integration configuration are detached, which results in the configuration cannot adjust to the requirements dynamically.(3) Integration configuration involves numerous domain knowledge, while it demands high professional threshold and it’s difficult for integration engineer to make use of them efficiently.To solve the problems above, we propose a model-driven development method of healthcare information system integration. The method uses a model of accurate grammar and semantic to express integration requirements completely, and make it possible that the requirements model can be converted to the integration configuration automatically. The method makes the focus of integration extended from technology to business process, which allows more people to participate in and collaborate to perform integration project. Also, it makes integration business requirements be directly related to the implementation step, which ensures that the integration configuration solution can adjust to requirements. On the basis of this method, we studied the method to convert IHE technical framework to integration requirements model template, so that the domain knowledge provides guidelines for engineers in times of integration requirements analysis and design. The main work includes:1) Compare modeling language UML and BPMN on their ability to express integration requirements completely and accurately. Select the optimum BPMN to be extended to establish an integration requirements model with accurate grammar, precise semantic and ability to be processed by computer. The model make all people involved in communicate efficiently.2) Create parametric EIP model independent of integration platform. Study algorithm to convert integration requirements model to EIP messaging solution, and then convert EIP to the typical integration engine Mirth Connect Channel. Thus, make the integration requirements be directly related to the configuration step, which ensures that the configuration can adjust to requirements dynamically.3) Study the method to map IHE abstract model to integration requirements model, and create IHE template library to facilitate integration requirements analysis and design.4) Design and implement tool to support the proposed model-driven development method. The tool contains an editor with IHE template library to model integration requirements and a conversion engine that can convert integration requirements model to EIP, and then further convert EIP to a specific engine configuration. Finally, a practice including radiology and laboratory order process is carried out.The practical results show that the proposed model-driven development method of healthcare information system integration can express the integration requirements completely and accurately. The automatic convert from integration requirement model to integration configuration can enhance the efficiency and flexibility of integration solution. The IHE template library provides guidelines for engineers to do integration requirements analysis and design, reducing the professional threshold of integration.