Evaluation of documents that integrate knowledge, terminology and information models.

Healthcare depends on evidence for practice and for electronic exchange of clinical patient information. To standardize the information that is being exchanged we created a format for describing care related information: a care information model. This model integrates knowledge, terminology and an information model. During a meeting between experts on nursing, standards and electronic patient records we evaluated the format of the care information model by use of an evaluation form and a group discussion. In general, the experts were enthusiastic about the format of the care information model. However they missed specific information about the purpose of the documents, and clarity on copyright issues. In addition, detailed comments on the existing structure and suggestions for additional categories were given. Also, experts suggested representing the integration in both HL7 message model format and in OpenEHR archetype format to allow different implementations of the same intelligence. From this we can conclude that the combination of these aspects in one document creates a valuable content for development of messages and systems. However, some adjustments are needed.