What is the next generation of electronic patient record?

Abstract

WHO has defined three standards for classification and terminology used in Healthcare Information Systems: ICD (International Classification of Disease), ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) and ICHI (International Classification of Health Intervention). They are used for clinical and diagnosis coding, classification of the health components of functioning and disability, and classifying procedure codes in medicine respectively. These classifications provide the terminology to describe clinical data and diagnosis. To represent the semantic meaning of e-patient records, WHO launched a project of implementation of ICD-10 plus, ICD-11 draft and ICD-11 Ontology in March of 2007. The new ICD standard guides the classification and representation of knowledge of clinical data. So, what is the next generation of e-patient record? How does the e-patient record move from being information-based to being knowledge-based? What kinds of research questions need to be tackled in the new evolution of e-patient records?