Archetypes for PHRs

Archetypes for PHRs Medicine is one of the oldest professions in our civilization dealing with human life which deeply affects our individual and societal wellbeing. It should be expected that such an important field has to be backed up with every possible science and technology. Information and communications technology (ICT) is no exception with a good track of success in many fields such as finance and tourism. However it is
obvious that this is not the case in healthcare in spite of the vast amount of literature on the proven benefits of ICT for tackling the fundamental problems of healthcare. The identified reasons for this paradox are many fold but they mainly focus on added difficulty to IS development due to the complexity and volatility of medical concepts. Another important reason roots from the inherent subjective or non-deterministic
nature of medicine. Not only is the body of knowledge highly variable but also the practice changes from time to time and place to place. This means a particular instance of a medical situation may not be valid at all times. The consequences of this during HIS development are disastrous. Medical authorities concentrate on establishing a standardized or at least core medical curriculum in medical education and also try to realize a common medical terminology for practicing physicians to alleviate these problems. Considering the dynamic and fast track advance in ICT, we believe it will be more efficient to attack the former problem while hoping the latter one to progress over time. This is the general motivation for this study.