Maintaining Meaning of Information when it is Shared amongst Information Systems

Continuity of healthcare refers to the ability for multiple points of care to deal seamlessly with a patient. Tools for improving continuity of care, such as patient Electronic Health Records, need to draw on information from diverse information systems. However, reliable sharing of information across systems is known to be a difficult problem. An approach to information integration that is possible when there is a controlling organisation or a consensus amongst partners is to enforce compliance of new information systems with a master model. This requires a feasible and reliable way to check whether the data structures of a target information system conform to those of the master system. A method based on the mathematical category theory has been previously proposed. This paper describes the underlying model and investigates a stricter definition of compliance that could be employed with Electronic Health Records. It then outlines implementation in a semi-automated compliance checking system.