A flexible metamodelling approach for healthcare systems

Model driven software engineering (MDSE) is an emerging methodology for software development, targeting productivity, flexibility and reliability of systems; metamodelling is at the core of most MDSE approaches. Due to their complexity and plethora of requirements placed upon them, healthcare systems so far have not been adequately modeled; as a result the software developed for them suffers from high development costs and lack of flexibility, and its reliability is at risk. Here we propose a metamodelling approach that captures the complexity of these systems by using a metamodelling hierarchy, built from five metamodels, one each for user access modelling, health process modelling, process monitoring, user interface modelling and modelling of the data sources. These metamodels are coordinated with morphisms. Such a hierarchy allows us to adequately reflect the behavior and complexities of systems and how they interact with different stakeholders. We give details of some of the metamodels and present some suggestions for some different interfaces intended for two different users: the clinicians and the patients.