HL7 healthcare "timing" and PIM

[William Cox <wtcox@CoxSoftwareArchitects.com>]

See http://wiki.hl7.org/index.php?title=Old_ITS_datatypes_content#Timing_Specifications - as the URI suggests it's not the most current, but reflects some medical industry thinking.

I've pretty much convinced myself that recurrences in GluonType make sense and address common use cases (thanks, Mike!) regardless of the inheritance description - in fact they're useful even if the closest recurrence obtains.

Here's perhaps the simplest case from the HL7 URI. Sounds a lot like recurrences, with non-iCalendar terminology. Expressed with a gluon for the actions with recurrence in the gluon.

PIVL (PeriodicInterval)

Information

Specializes ANY

Definition: An interval of time that recurs periodically. PIVL has two properties, phase and period. phase specifies the "interval prototype" that is repeated every ..

In the abstract specification, PIVL is a specialization of SET<TS>. In this specification, PIVL is treated as a specification from which a set<TS> can be generated, and TS is treated as an implicit rather than explicit parameter

OpenEHR: The type DV_TIME_SPECIFICATION provides for the literal representation of this data

Attributes

Name	Type	Definition	Details	OpenEHR Mapping
phase	TS	A prototype of the repeating interval, specifying the duration of each occurrence and anchors the PIVL sequence at a certain point in time	phase also marks the anchor point in time for the entire series of periodically recurring intervals. The recurrence of a PIVL has no beginning or ending, but is infinite in both future and past.	N/A
period	PQ	A time duration specifying as a reciprocal measure of the frequency at which the PIVL repeats		N/A
alignment	CalendarCycle	Specifies if and how the repetitions are aligned to the cycles of the underlying calendar (e.g., to distinguish every 30 days from "the 5th of every month".)	A non-aligned PIVL recurs independently from the calendar. An aligned PIVL is synchronized with the calendar.	N/A
institutionSpecified	Boolean	Indicates whether the exact timing is up to the party executing the schedule	e.g., to distinguish "every 8 hours" from "3 times a day".	N/A

Invariants

required attributes

If PIVL is not null, phase and period must b

The Event-Related Periodic Interval of Time (EIVL) is like "one hour after breakfast", related to a set of daily events/habits.  Has the same ambiguity one gets from standard medical practice.

The General Timing Specification is really a sequence with associated data, so a non-specific sequence could be used.

(the latter two are at the URI).

--

William Cox 

Email: wtcox@CoxSoftwareArchitects.com 

Web: http://www.CoxSoftwareArchitects.com 

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