Conceptual Modeling in Health Information Technology

Abstract

Electronic health record (EHR) systems are the cornerstone of any modern health service. Studies have consistently shown, however, that introducing EHR systems is a complex task, with difficulties stemming from technical designs that fit poorly with the details of clinical work practices. Given the evolving role of EHRs, a unified framework for a holistic modeling approach is needed in health IT. Current conceptual modeling techniques use object-oriented diagrams as their main tools; the nature of this methodology requires breaking the system's behavior into several pieces and then further decomposing those pieces into other diagrams. This chapter introduces a conceptual-modeling methodology that is based on flows; it also presents different conceptualizations of such notions as processes, things (objects), and events. Without a loss of generality, this chapter focuses on documenting patterns of clinician-information use cases and tools for evaluating EHR implementation.

Conceptual Modeling of Inventory Management Processes as a Thinging Machine

“…The container is released ( 16) after registering its rejection (17) and is transferred ( 18) to be disregarded. Inside the chemical storage, the temperature and humidity ( (19,20) and (21,22), respectively) are monitored continuously. If both failed ( 23), an alarm is triggered (24), and the container is released (16) after registering its rejection (17) and is transferred (18) to be disregarded.…”

“…In this sense, existence and subsistence are divergent of each other, where a subsisting thing is the not-yet -emergen-ized into existence‖ thing. This -not-yet‖ existence leads to subsistence and refers to a thimac being in subsistence and the use of Lupascian logic to represent a type of negativity [21]. The existing thing (event) is no longer in the exist stage, but it has taken residence in subsistence: -there is no absolute void in nature […] the absence of one thing is only possible by the more or less explicit representation of the presence of some other thing‖ [22].…”

“…If the borrower's request details do not match any policy in the file (19), a -no offer‖ message is sent to the borrower (20). If a lender's policy is found (21), then the request is sent to that lender (22 and 23). The lender processes the request (24) and sends the response to the company (25).…”