Authors:
Pedro Gomes
1
;
Samuel Frade
2
;
Ana Castro
3
;
Ricardo Cruz-Correia
2
and
Miguel Coimbra
1
Affiliations:
1
Universidade do Porto, Portugal
;
2
Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade do Porto and CINTESIS - Center for Research in Health Technologies and Information Systems, Portugal
;
3
Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Portugal
Keyword(s):
Auscultation, Digital Stethoscope, HL7, OpenEHR, e-Health.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Biomedical Engineering
;
Cloud Computing
;
Distributed and Mobile Software Systems
;
e-Health
;
e-Health for Public Health
;
Electronic Health Records and Standards
;
Health Engineering and Technology Applications
;
Health Information Systems
;
Mobile Technologies
;
Mobile Technologies for Healthcare Applications
;
Neural Rehabilitation
;
Neurotechnology, Electronics and Informatics
;
Platforms and Applications
;
Software Engineering
;
Telemedicine
Abstract:
This paper aims to describe and discuss a proposal to incorporate digital auscultation and its processing into
an existing EHR. The architecture was planned to be used in both primary and hospital care, and includes a
digital stethoscope; an exam collection module; an integration module; an EHR web service; and an EHR.
Special attention was given to standardize communications using HL7 and openEHR. The proposed implementation
uses a commercial stethoscope, an android app to collect the data, a mirth integration engine that
communicates using HL7 or openEHR through REST or SOAP calls. The signal processing of the sounds
is also included. The auscultation sound files are made available to the EHR users. This solution will open
the possibility to have richer patient records than can be very important for patient care, research and medical
teaching. It also raises issues regarding ethical and legal concerns that must be considered in future research.