title: Meta-modelling: the appropriate solution for a family of applications.
abstract: The aim of this paper is to present an appropriate framework able to generate models and to implement them, in the objective of computerizing a family of medico-technical reports. The accelerated rate of technical development makes it necessary to design computerized applications independently of data-processing technology. This apparent paradox is a quite real challenge which needs research and development software environments to support frameworks. In this article, we present a meta-model (i.e. a generic structure - supported by the Méta-Gen software tool) ) which is able to generate various models of medico-technical reports. These models in turn are able to generate various types of instances. This meta-model is a "Meta-medical record", it is constituted of basic concepts : " User Semantic Group " to which are attached a set of " sentence-type ", a set of several corpus of variables with a set of graphs ("navigators"). Five models (echocardiography for hospital "A", echocardiography for hospital "B", gastroscopy, fibercoloscopy A.E.P.). were already generated from this "Meta-Medical Record". A beginning of implementation in echocardiography report is presented here. The advantages are a very thorough personalization of the document for the user, and a greater independence of the design diagram from the technological platform.
authors.affiliation: Université Paris XIII, Hôpital Avicenne, Dépt Santé Publique, Biostatistiques, Informatique Médicale, 93000 Bobigny, France. Bernard.Huet@lip6.fr
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Huet
authors.forename: J Y
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Artigou
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Poirier
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Blain
mesh_terms: D004452:Echocardiography; D006801:Humans; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012984:Software