FIGHT AGAINST THE EPIDEMIC: STANDARDIZED MODELS FOR COVID-19 DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF OPENEHR RELEASED BY MEDICAL SOFTWARE BRANCH

  • 2020-03-20

On February 28, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the global risk level of COVID-19 to "very high" and all countries faced great challenges in the disease prevention and control. The National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China revised the Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (Trial Version 6) to Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (Trial Version 7) on March 3, 2020.

 

Wide use of the clinically effective diagnosis and treatment protocol in the front line of global disease prevention and control as soon as possible is of great significance in strengthening the early diagnosis and treatment of the disease, improving the cure rate, reducing the mortality rate and effectively containing the spread of the epidemic. Therefore, Zhejiang University, chair institution of the Medical Software Branch, immediately cooperated with relevant domestic medical institutions and enterprises, made full use of the capacity of international open big data openEHR for rapid response to new knowledge of new fields and obtained the support of openEHR International Board, so as to achieve the rapid translation of guidelines of the latest version of the diagnosis and treatment protocol of novel coronavirus pneumonia released by the National Health Commission, build standardized information models and clinical diagnosis and treatment rules for COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment decision support and open them to the world in hope of making contributions to all other countries in beating the epidemic.

 

Standardized information models of openEHR can be used to facilitate the exchange of data between EMR and decision support tools. Due to the high flexibility of the two-level modeling, openEHR can be adjusted adaptively to meet the needs when information models are dynamically changed according to rapidly released diagnosis and treatment guidelines. The standardized diagnosis and treatment rules based on the clinical guideline definition language (openEHR GDL) can be used to rapidly build clinical decision support tools, assist clinicians in quick assistance guidance for the judgment of suspect and confirmed cases, clinical classification, drug use and other treatment measures, and play an important role in outpatient screening, hospitalization and intensive care, etc. openEHR information models and GDL diagnosis and treatment rules are used to translate clinical guidelines to expose more medical workers to more authoritative and correct medical guidance in medical practices. Such models and rules can also facilitate rapid combination of decision support processes and medical workers' tasks, in order to avoid inadequate or excessive medical care caused by lack of disease knowledge, realize the early diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 and improve the cure rate.

 

Active communication between the team and the openEHR International Board has been made, and guidance on the standardized information model and clinical diagnosis and treatment rules has been given by experts from the openEHR International Board. At present, COVID-19 information models and diagnosis and treatment rules of openEHR based on the Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia have been released on Github (https://github.com/ZJU-BME-VICO/openEHR-COVID-19). Moreover, information models have been released on the modeling collaboration platform of openEHR China (http://hmc.openehr.org.cn) and will be released on openEHR CKM, an international open model knowledge base, in the near future. The clinical decision support system based on standardized information models and diagnosis and treatment rules has been developed. Cooperation with medical institutions has been established for clinical evaluation and application of such system in the near future.

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