I am working to transfer some environmental data into OpenEHR-format.
The environmental data contains measurements of different pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, ozone or nitrogen dioxide.
The archetype openEHR-EHR-EVALUATION.exposure.v0 is very close to what I need, but unfortunately,
it does not provide the possibility to store a quantitative measurement value.
In this case I would like to extend this archetype by adding the DV_QUANTITY field “Measured Value” directly into the cluster “Exposure Details”.
I would be grateful for better suggestions for the name of this field.
In addition to that I would like to add “coded text” as an available type for the field “Agent” in order to code the individual pollutants according to SNOMED terminology.
Are there any other ideas?
Regarding new element in the Exposure Details Cluster, the exposure archetype is still in Draft, and might be changed substantially before being published. Please do add a Change Request to it in the CKM:
The CKM Administrators will pick up this request and process it with other requests. Note that it has been idle for quite a while, so it can take time before it will be processed.
In the meantime, you can add the element to the archetype on your own, if you are willing to use a non-published archetype in your system.
With regard to the name of the new element/item/node (“field”), what about “Amount”?
I know it’s phrased to be about medications right now, but it should be usable for several other things including both inadvertent exposure and things like radiation therapy doses.
The first question I always ask is: “What are you wanting to use this information for?”
EVALUATION archetypes are typically used to record persisting summary, background or cumulative data. For example, the Purpose of the EVALUATION.exposure archetype is “To record summary details of exposure of the subject to a chemical, physical or biological agent within their environment that has caused, or may possibly cause in the future, a negative impact on health.” As the original author, I anticipate that EVALUATION.exposure may evolve along the lines of the published EVALUATION.medication_summary, which tracks cumulative medication administration over one or more episodes, for example high dose steroids or ototoxic antibiotics. The intent of EVALUATION.exposure is similarly to support assessment of risk arising from cumulative exposure to external factors such as noise, asbestos or inhaled smoke. In keeping with our current modelling patterns, when it goes through the peer review process it should probably be renamed ‘Exposure summary’ to more accurately reflect this.
Note that there are a couple of change requests that also give insight into how this archetype may evolve.
However, if your use case is to record quantitative measurements of environmental pollutants at a specific point in time, or averaged over a defined interval, then this should be an OBSERVATION rather than an EVALUATION. Think of it as the environmental equivalent of a Blood Pressure measurement. Such a requirement would likely necessitate development of a new archetype designed specifically for environmental measurement.
