From ObsCare Software to an OpenEHR Platform: Modelling Obstetric Archetypes

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS Electronic health records (EHRs) are important tools to facilitate communication between care providers and to improve clinical research. In obstetrics they became essential. The ObsCare software was created to answer to the need for an EHR with specific obstetric features. The present study aimed to develop openEHR-archetypes capable of representing an ObsCare® EHR form and to create an openEHR-template using the developed archetypes. METHODS The study was performed in four phases: 1) selection and description of the ObsCare form; 2) Clinical Knowledge Manager (CKM) analysis; 3) modelling of the archetypes; 4) creation and testing of the template. RESULTS One openEHR-archetype - Newborn summary - was modelled to assemble the following three clinical concepts that were not represented in CKM: hours of life, "Examination of newborn movements" and "Examination of reflexes". Finally, an openEHR-template was built and automatically converted into an EHR by VCIntegrator. CONCLUSIONS Considering the potential to improve clinical research, we believe that more obstetric-gynecologic clinical statements should be modelled into openEHR.