Multi-agent systems for HL7 interoperability services

Abstract

Information systems in healthcare are complex abstract systems. Systems communicate in a consolidated manner. Several methodologies exist presently to implement interoperable information systems in healthcare. It results in several common communication architectures and mainstream standards such as Health Level 7. However several concerns regarding distribution, fault tolerance, standards, communication flavoring and tightly bound systems still exist broadly throughout the healthcare arena. The multi-agent paradigm has been an interesting research opportunity for addressing many of such limitation in interoperability. It allows orientating agents towards adaptable but standardized information flow enabling interoperability in a loosely coupled manner. This paper proposes and explains a multi-agent based architecture, which uses the HL7 standard as a means towards the implementation of interoperability in healthcare environment. It follows the concept of distributed consolidation of information, aiming heterogeneous systems to communicate towards their mutual benefit however through middleware agents which validate and consolidate information.