This document specifies the fundamental characteristics of the computational model implemented
by a specific architectural layer of the information system (i.e. the service architecture) to provide
a comprehensive and integrated interface to the common enterprise information and to support
the fundamental business processes of the healthcare organization, as defined in ISO 12967-1. The
computational model is specified without any explicit or implicit assumption about the physical
technologies, tools or solutions to adopt for its physical implementation in the various target scenarios.
The specification is nevertheless formal, complete and non-ambiguous enough to allow implementers to
derive an efficient design of the system in the specific technological environment which will be selected
for the physical implementation.
The computational model specified in this document provides the basis for ensuring consistency
between different engineering and technology specifications (including programming languages and
communication mechanisms) since they are intended to be consistent with the same computational
object model. This consistency allows open inter-working and portability of components in the resulting
implementation.
This document does not aim at representing a fixed, complete, specification of all possible interfaces
that might be necessary for any requirement of any healthcare enterprise. It specifies only a set of
characteristics — in terms of overall organization and individual computational objects, identified as
fundamental and common to all healthcare organizations, and that are satisfied by the computational
model implemented by the service architecture.
Preserving consistency with the provisions of this document, physical implementations of the
computational model specified in this document can allow extensions in order to support additional and
local requirements. Extensions can include both the definition of additional properties of the objects of
the computational model specified in this document and the implementation of entirely new objects.
Also, the computational model specified in this document can be extendable over time according to
the evolution of the applicable standardization initiatives, in accordance to the methodology defined
in ISO 12967-1:2020, Clause 7, which identifies a set of healthcare common information services,
describing the requirements behind them and the methodology through which they will be used.
The information services specified in this document are only the minimal set identifiable according
to the identified requirements of the healthcare enterprise, and constituting the service architecture
(i.e. the integration platform) to serve as the basis for healthcare applications, e.g. EHR or patient
administration.