Methods Inf Med 2010; 49(03): 271-280
DOI: 10.3414/ME09-02-0027
Special Topic – Original Articles
Schattauer GmbH

Semantic Validation of Standard-based Electronic Health Record Documents with W3C XML Schema

C. Rinner
1   Section of Medical Information and Retrieval Systems, Core Unit for Medical Statistics and Informatics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
,
S. Janzek-Hawlat
1   Section of Medical Information and Retrieval Systems, Core Unit for Medical Statistics and Informatics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
,
S. Sibinovic
1   Section of Medical Information and Retrieval Systems, Core Unit for Medical Statistics and Informatics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
,
G. Duftschmid
1   Section of Medical Information and Retrieval Systems, Core Unit for Medical Statistics and Informatics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
› Author Affiliations
Further Information

Publication History

received: 12 September 2009

accepted: 13 April 2009

Publication Date:
17 January 2018 (online)

Summary

Objectives: The goal of this article is to examine whether W3C XML Schema provides a practicable solution for the semantic validation of standard-based electronic health record (EHR) documents. With semantic validation we mean that the EHR documents are checked for conformance with the underlying archetypes and reference model.

Methods: We describe an approach that allows XML Schemas to be derived from archetypes based on a specific naming convention. The archetype constraints are augmented with additional components of the reference model within the XML Schema representation. A copy of the EHR document that is transformed according to the before-mentioned naming convention is used for the actual validation against the XML Schema.

Results: We tested our approach by semantically validating EHR documents conformant to three different ISO/EN 13606 archetypes respective to three sections of the CDA implementation guide “Continuity of Care Document (CCD)” and an implementation guide for diabetes therapy data. We further developed a tool to automate the different steps of our semantic validation approach.

Conclusions: For two particular kinds of archetype prescriptions, individual transformations are required for the corresponding EHR documents. Otherwise, a fully generic validation is possible. In general, we consider W3C XML Schema as a practicable solution for the semantic validation of standard-based EHR documents.