A Light-Weight System Extension Supporting Document-Based Processes in Healthcare

Inadequate availability of patient information is a major cause for medical errors and affects costs in healthcare. Traditional information integration in healthcare does not solve the problem. Applying the classic diagnostic-therapeuthic cycle as the model for a documentoriented information exchange protocol allows to foster inter-institutional information exchange in healthcare. The goal of the proposed architecture is to provide information exchange between strict autonomous healthcare institutions, bridging the gap between primary and secondary care, following traditional paper-based working practice. The combination of a restful architecture with a distributed light-weight workflow model provides minimized requirement for participating systems. Topics: Process oriented system architectures in healthcare, process interoperability & standards in healthcare, context-aware healthcare processes, inter-institutional healthcare information systems, documentoriented integration