Title: An XML-based mediator for health information systems

Authors: Sanae Mazouz; Mohammed Ouçamah Cherkaoui Malki; El Habib Nfaoui

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Sciences, Dhar El Mahraz (FSDM), Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University (USMBA), BP 1796, Fez, Morocco ' Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Sciences, Dhar El Mahraz (FSDM), Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University (USMBA), BP 1796, Fez, Morocco ' Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Sciences, Dhar El Mahraz (FSDM), Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University (USMBA), BP 1796, Fez, Morocco

Abstract: Exchanging and sharing distributed information among health information systems is a challenge. The presence of distinct information systems from different vendors and countries make this exchange difficult. Several standards and techniques were created to ensure this exchange and make these systems interoperable. Existing solutions requires technical training, are specific to one institution, and affect changes at the source and target systems. This paper proposes an XML Schema Mediator to facilitate the exchange of meaningful clinical information among healthcare institutions. The use of the mediator will reduce the number of interfaces between HIS from [n × (n - 1) / 2[ interfaces to (n) interfaces. The mediation process is composed of three stages: formalising stage, matching stage, and mapping stage. The proposed mediator requires no technical training; and it is also simple, flexible, efficient and platform independent.

Keywords: health information systems; HIS; interoperability; XML schema mediator; XML schema matching; information sharing; clinical information.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMEI.2016.073654

International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics, 2016 Vol.8 No.1, pp.63 - 75

Received: 18 Sep 2014
Accepted: 22 Dec 2014
Published online: 15 Dec 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article