Common Platform

Overview

The Project HealthDesign Common Platform is a set of software components that provide common, shared functions to a variety of personal health applications (PHAs). The goal of “centralizing” these functions is to reduce personal health application implementation time and increase interoperability among the PHAs. The common platform components are currently implemented as web services that PHAs may access via standard web interfaces. Services exist for storing observations and medications, as well as for providing authentication, registry, and access-control functions. The Project HealthDesign Common Platform was developed by Sujansky & Associates, LLC.

• Common Platform Components Summary
• Technical Specifications Overview & Overview Presentation
• Technical Specifications Framework
• Functional Requirements
• Comparative Analysis with Respect to Existing and Emerging Clinical Data Standards and Commercial PHR Data Repositories (Appendix)

Common Platform Components:
Designed to be Used in Two Different Modes

First, the services may be available in a shared environment, allowing multiple PHAs to store and retrieve common data as well as to share users’ authentication (login) information and patients’ access-control (security) rules. The figure above depicts this mode, which enables the greatest interoperability across PHAs. Patient information entered by one PHA may be shared with other PHAs, and patients can centrally manage the rules for sharing their information.

Alternatively, the software may be integrated into individual PHAs as “pre-fabricated” subsystems that provide useful functionality, such as medication management, observation management, and security. As it is developed, a PHA can leverage one or more of the platform components in this manner. Although this mode may not support the sharing of data or security settings across PHAs, it can reduce development time and provide optimal performance when sharing is not required.

The Common Platform is Available for Use in Two Forms:

1. Developer Environment
   • A hosted instance of the open source Common Platform available to developers to speed the pace of application development.
   • A sample application is provided as a demonstration of some of the Common Platform components, and can be used by developers and users to see the platform in action.
      
2. Source Code
   • The Common Platform is also available under open source license. All Personal Health Application developers are invited to download the source code and host it on your own infrastructure.

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