Hi Remko, Remko Nienhuis wrote:
> Dear list members, > > > > My name is Remko Nienhuis and I am currently working for a small Dutch > company named 2Cure, which is an international medical software > supplier. At this moment, my major goal in life is understanding the > OpenEHR design paradigm and reference models and the way it can or > will influence futureous developments on our products. I started > studying OpenEHR just a couple of weeks ago, so despite the great > documentation, there is still a lot to learn. > > > > One of the things I do not fully understand is how a softwaresystem > should be able to relate an instruction(entry) with the futureous > result of this instruction, which will in > many cases be a new transaction, for instance a Radiology visit. This > kind of relation, which can also be nested and then will create a kind > of ehr-thread on its own, will occure rather often. > The we we do this is with the LINK type, defined on the class LOCATABLE, which almost every node type inherits from. It is therefore possible to create a LINK between 2 TRANSACTIONs, one of which contains the INSTRUCTION representing e.g. a medication order, and another which contains OBSERVATION entries describing the administration. The links can be named, and typed, and can be used to construct "problem threads", "issue threads", causal linkages or whatever. > Because the initiating instruction and the resulting transaction will > not share the > same Clinical_Context and are not the result of the same Contribution, > their relation can not be derived that way. > correct - LINKs cut right through all that. > Ofcourse it is possible to put both transactions underneath the same > Folder, but that won't create a relation between the instruction and a > transaction. > no need to do this either. > > > As I understand the Link class can be used to create such > relationships, but in the above scenario the Link can only be created > afterwards (after the second Transaction has been created). How to > constrain such a relationship? > aha - you have read more than I thought;-). Links can be added to both the source and the target transaction, but obviously the target transaction has to exist first. When it is created, you create the link in either the target or the source, depending on its meaning and intended use - if you modify the source (i.e. the previously existing TRANSACTION) you just create a new version of it. THis is a good question - it's a classic scenario. - thomas > - If you have any questions about using this list, please send a message to d.lloyd at openehr.org
