# MEDILIG - Health Information and Integration Platform ontology

**URL:** <https://discourse.openehr.org/t/medilig-health-information-and-integration-platform-ontology/15001>\
**Category:** Clinical (archive)\
**Created:** [29 June 2010 11:17 UTC](https://discourse.openehr.org/t/medilig-health-information-and-integration-platform-ontology/15001 "2010-06-29T11:17:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Athanassios\_I\_Hatzis](https://discourse.openehr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/da6949/32.png) [@Athanassios\_I\_Hatzis](https://discourse.openehr.org/u/Athanassios_I_Hatzis)\
**Post date:** [29 June 2010 11:17 UTC](https://discourse.openehr.org/t/medilig-health-information-and-integration-platform-ontology/15001/1 "2010-06-29T11:17:16Z")

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Dear openehr members  
I have posted the following message to your lists and I received two  
replies; the first saying it was rejected with no reason given and the  
second gave the following reason for rejecting "Non-members are not allowed  
to post messages to this list".

As far as I know I am a registered user with the clinical knowledge manager  
but I do not know if that entitles me to send email to your lists. If not  
can you register my email and allow this email to appear in your list. If it  
does not have to do with the registration but with the content of my email I  
would appreciate a more detailed answer, especially from Thomas, explaining  
the reason it was banned.

Thank you very much for your time

Kind regards

Athanassios I. Hatzis, PhD  
[http://healis.gr](http://healis.gr)  
[http://athanassios.gr](http://athanassios.gr)

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**Author:** ![Anthony\_Peacock1](https://discourse.openehr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/b5ac83/32.png) [@Anthony\_Peacock1](https://discourse.openehr.org/u/Anthony_Peacock1)\
**Post date:** [29 June 2010 11:49 UTC](https://discourse.openehr.org/t/medilig-health-information-and-integration-platform-ontology/15001/2 "2010-06-29T11:49:04Z")

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Hi,

In order to post a message to any of the openEHR mailing lists you first  
need to be subscribed to that list. Information about the various mailing  
lists and subscription instructions are found here:

[http://www.openehr.org/community/mailinglists.html](http://www.openehr.org/community/mailinglists.html)

Registering to use the Clinical Knowledge Manager does not automatically  
subscribe you to any of the lists.

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**Author:** ![Athanassios\_I\_Hatzi1](https://discourse.openehr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@Athanassios\_I\_Hatzi1](https://discourse.openehr.org/u/Athanassios_I_Hatzi1)\
**Post date:** [29 June 2010 16:39 UTC](https://discourse.openehr.org/t/medilig-health-information-and-integration-platform-ontology/15001/3 "2010-06-29T16:39:37Z")

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Hi all,  
I have been following discussions on your lists for a year now and I have  
been triggered from the post of Evelyn about Health Information and  
Integration Platform ontology to send my comments on ER health modeling.

My quest for ER models in the health domain started a year ago when I  
decided to migrate a neurosurgery clinical database that I have developed as  
a legacy EMR system and use international health standards for coding the  
data.  
[http://athanassios.gr/neurohealis.htm](http://athanassios.gr/neurohealis.htm)

I thought it would be easy to find a suitable schema from health standards  
organizations and open EHR/EMR software to migrate my data but this is  
exactly the point where I realized that schemas I studied where either too  
complicate to read and implement or very limited. Perhaps this is why there  
are hardly any implemented open RDBMS based on well defined extensive ER  
health model. This observation gave birth to MEDILIG project.  
[http://sourceforge.net/projects/medilig/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/medilig/)

MEDILIG is currently a personal effort to implement a simple but extensive  
ER model that can be implemented easily with popular databases such as MSQL  
server, MySQL, Oracle and build EHR or other clinical systems on top of it.  
I have been studying openEHR archetypes and NHS data model to use values for  
lookup tables I have in MEDILIG schema. What I find most intuitive with  
openEHR is the idea for modeling archetypes and templates. But one can be  
easily lost with the data details and structure, hence the need for  
navigation through the model.

Although there are several health standards around for coding I do not think  
there has been any agreement on what is going to be the standard ER model to  
use and I believe that this might be a key reason why professionals from  
both clinical and IT sector find difficulties in communicating effectively.  
You need to refer to an ontology map such as those used at NCBO.  
[http://bioportal.bioontology.org/](http://bioportal.bioontology.org/)

To support further my arguments I attach for your convenience ER models for  
HL7, NHS, openEHR and MEDILIG.  
[http://cid-abb3ba8f2878f50f.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/ER%20Models.zi](http://cid-abb3ba8f2878f50f.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/ER%20Models.zi)  
p  
(please let me know if you have problems with the link)

Perhaps one can start an open discussion at a blog for a COMPARISON of them.  
If you study MEDILIG ontology you will notice that there are very few core  
entities and most of the other entities are used like attributes with values  
taken from international health coding standards. I think that this is a  
useful distinction for future ER models. In case you are aware of  
publications on that topic or discussions, please do advise me accordingly.

Hope to have your feedback/comments for my point of view

My best wishes to all

Athanassios I. Hatzis, PhD

[http://healis.gr](http://healis.gr)

[http://athanassios.gr](http://athanassios.gr)

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**Author:** ![Karsten\_Hilbert](https://discourse.openehr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Karsten\_Hilbert](https://discourse.openehr.org/u/Karsten_Hilbert)\
**Post date:** [29 June 2010 18:45 UTC](https://discourse.openehr.org/t/medilig-health-information-and-integration-platform-ontology/15001/4 "2010-06-29T18:45:51Z")

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> I thought it would be easy to find a suitable schema from health standards  
> organizations and open EHR/EMR software to migrate my data but this is  
> exactly the point where I realized that schemas I studied where either too  
> complicate to read and implement or very limited. Perhaps this is why there  
> are hardly any implemented open RDBMS based on well defined extensive ER  
> health model. This observation gave birth to MEDILIG project.  
> [http://sourceforge.net/projects/medilig/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/medilig/)

Unfortunately, from this site I can only download a file  
which probably contains the database schema in a proprietary  
format (no raw SQL, that is). I would love to inspect the  
schema but can't.

> To support further my arguments I attach for your convenience ER models for  
> HL7, NHS, openEHR and MEDILIG.  
> [http://cid-abb3ba8f2878f50f.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/ER%20Models.zi](http://cid-abb3ba8f2878f50f.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/ER%20Models.zi)  
> p

Ah, nice, you provided a PDF with a high level rendering of  
the schema. Now, is there anywhere I can see the SQL and/or  
some documentation on what your tables mean/are intended to  
store ?

Thanks !

Karsten

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**Author:** ![Athanassios\_I\_Hatzi1](https://discourse.openehr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@Athanassios\_I\_Hatzi1](https://discourse.openehr.org/u/Athanassios_I_Hatzi1)\
**Post date:** [29 June 2010 19:16 UTC](https://discourse.openehr.org/t/medilig-health-information-and-integration-platform-ontology/15001/5 "2010-06-29T19:16:36Z")

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The zip file (Green Download Now!) contains everything (MSQL database  
schema, Access GUI, user guides, etc....)  
[http://sourceforge.net/projects/medilig/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/medilig/)

If you just want to browse the files use  
[http://sourceforge.net/projects/medilig/files/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/medilig/files/)

Documentation about the schema is on the file MEDILIG MSQL - User Guide.pdf  
[http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/project/medilig/DB-MSQL/MEDILIG%20MSQL%20-%](http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/project/medilig/DB-MSQL/MEDILIG%20MSQL%20-%25)  
20User%20Guide.pdf

Hope that helps others too

Athanassios

[mailto:openehr-clinical-bounces@openehr.org] On Behalf Of Karsten Hilbert

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**Author:** ![Karsten\_Hilbert](https://discourse.openehr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Karsten\_Hilbert](https://discourse.openehr.org/u/Karsten_Hilbert)\
**Post date:** [29 June 2010 22:22 UTC](https://discourse.openehr.org/t/medilig-health-information-and-integration-platform-ontology/15001/6 "2010-06-29T22:22:24Z")

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Thank you. That makes it somewhat clearer.

Karsten