Multi-Level Healthcare Information Modelling

MLHIM - A group of frameworks, applications and tools used to develop health care applications and the governance of knowledge artifacts using a multi-level information model. MLHIM is an implementation independent model.

It is multi-level in regards to a reference model that is developed in software with the conceptual knowledge models implemented using XML schemas that express constraints on the reference model. The XML schemas can then be easily shared between systems so that the semantic context is made available to the data in any conforming application. These XML schema knowledge models can be aggregated in order to form queries, messages, screen forms, reports, etc.

“…the major task in society – and especially in the economy… [is] doing something different rather than doing better what is already being done.” -- Peter F. Drucker

Why is this approach important?

The first reason is because healthcare information is inherently hierarchical, not rectangular or cubical. The second is because the rate of devices capable of producing more and more personal healthcare data is growing exponentially. This enormous growth in data that is the most personal, most important to every individual, especially to those with chronic conditions; is only useful when it can be combined into meaningful information for the citizen and the healthcare professional.

This data is not currently being used in semantically inter-operable way across the multitude of devices and applications where it is needed. We must change this now! The XML schemas representing constraints on a generic reference model solves this problem.

Based on more than 20 years of research and development projects in Europe and Australia. These specifications came together in the early 2000's under the auspices of the openEHR Foundation and includes the research of Tim Cook on healthcare information modelling performed independently in the USA.

The MLHIM project uses this website to hold distribute information primarily regarding the constraint definitions and is a partner site to the Launchpad umbrella where open source components can be developed and shared in a true community based on the concepts of the multi-level modelling specifications in a multi-lingual environment and distributed under open source and open content licenses using openly available file formats. Governance of the specifications will be handled in a completely open source, democratic manner. The Launchpad site is at http://launchpad.net/mlhim

Hear how to pronounce MLHIM.

Feel free to explore and ask questions. You can join the mlhim-owners team on Launchpad and ask questions, contribute to development, edit documents, translate, etc. or simply participate in research discussions.

https://launchpad.net/~mlhim-owners

You can also contact the project lead, Timothy Cook directly.