A software architecture for data sharing in smart hospitals

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Sara Mohamadian Oliaee
Mohammad Khansari
School of Intelligent Systems, College of Interdisciplinary Science and Technologies, University of Tehran
10.48305/him.2025.42732.1202
Abstract
Introduction: The abundance and diversity of healthcare data play pivotal role in service delivery to various stakceholders. Upon examination of the smart hospital requirements and state-of-art in literature, a critical requirement emerges - the provision of appropriate software architecture to conduct data sharing.



Methods: Requirements analysis is carried out by both considering current challenges of Panzdah Khordad hospital as a case and new smart hospitals approach separately, We apply Babok standard, Business Analysis Body of Knowledge for this analysis. Unstructured interviews with all stake holders within the hospital through the use of focus group are conducted to identify the current challenges. On the other side, unstructured interviews with smart hospital group of experts also are performed to complement the software architecture requirements. Finally, we undertake a thorough investigation of a distinguished reference architecture known as Data as a Service (DaaS) within this domain. Next, we introduce a new software architecture for healthcare data sharing in smart hospital which supports identified requirements thoroughly. Evaluation of the proposed data sharing architecture regarding DaaS components and similar ones (Ketos architecture) are conducted.



Results: Developed smart hospital data sharing architecture enables intelligent and effective deployment of hospital data through sharing with authorized parties. The architecture includes microservice components for developing services, a smart hospital core, and internally defined services tailored to meet specific operational needs.



Conclusions: The proposed architecture based on several microservices, offers microservices capabilities for provision and usage, expandability, and integration with Hospital Information System (HIS) and SEPAS national system. Additionally, it enables communication and provision of value-added service through collaboration with 3rd partied ranging from startups to HIS providers, telco operators and medical industry partners, promoting interoperability and efficient and controlled data exchange to support innovation.



Keywords: Healthcare data, Smart hospital, Hospital Information System, Data sharing, Microservice architecture

Keywords

Subjects

1.Piri Z, Erfani S, Khadivi A, Determining Indicators for Evaluating Hospital Information System Architecture, Health Information Management, Tabriz: University of Medical Sciences Tabriz; 2015. P. 584-594. [In Persian]
2. Tabatabaei SM, Healthcare 4.0: a turning point for smart healt, Health Information Management, Mashhad: Department of Medical Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences; 2023. [In Persian]
3 . Benhlima L. Big data management for healthcare systems: architecture, requirements, and implementation. Advances in bioinformatics. 2018;2018 .
4 . Lovestone S, Consortium E. The European medical information framework: a novel ecosystem for sharing healthcare data across Europe. Learning health systems. 2020;4(2):e10214 .
5 . Gruendner J, Schwachhofer T, Sippl P, Wolf N, Erpenbeck M, Gulden C, et al. KETOS: Clinical decision support and machine learning as a serviceA training and deployment platform based on Docker, OMOP-CDM, and FHIR Web Services. PloS one. 2019;14(10):e0223010 .
6 . S. Rubí JN, L. Gondim PR. IoMT platform for pervasive healthcare data aggregation, processing, and sharing based on OneM2M and OpenEHR. Sensors. 2019;19(19):4283 .
7 . Volkov I, Radchenko G, editors. Architecture of mHealth Platform for Storing, Exchanging and Processing of Medical Data in Smart Healthcare. 2021 Ural Symposium on Biomedical Engineering, Radioelectronics and Information Technology (USBEREIT); 2021: IEEE .
8 . Quy VK, Hau NV, Anh DV, Ngoc LA. Smart healthcare IoT applications based on fog computing: architecture, applications and challenges. Complex & Intelligent Systems. 2022;8(5):3805-15 .
9 . Gavrilović N, Mishra A. Software architecture of the internet of things (IoT) for smart city, healthcare and agriculture: analysis and improvement directions. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing. 2021;12(1):1315-36 .  10 . Tummers J, Tobi H, Catal C, Tekinerdogan B. Designing a reference architecture for health information systems. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making. 2021;21(1):1-14 .
11. Klötgen M, Lauf F, Stäubert S, Meister S, Ammon D. A Trusted Data Sharing Environment based on FAIR Principles and Distributed Process
Execution2022. 583-9 p.
12. A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK® Guide)."International Institute of Business Analysis"; 2015.
13. Mohammadian Oliaee S, Khansari M. A Software Architecture for Sharing and Reusing Health Data in Smart Hospital. 2023, 1st International
Congress of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Sciences; Kish Island, Iran, May 17-19, 2023, p. 217. [In Persian].
14. Zonoobi M, Elahi S, Khansari M, Hassanzadeh A, Saheb T. Health Data Sharing with the Goal of Value Creation; Trying to Develop a Framework
Using Qualitative Content Analysis. Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine. 2024;12
15. To know the electronic health record system "Sepas". Available from: URL: https://stat.bpums.ac.ir [In Persian]
16. Nadareishvili I, Mitra R, McLarty M, Amundsen M. Microservice architecture: aligning principles, practices, and culture: " O'Reilly Media, Inc.";2016.
17. Sarkar P. Data as a service: A framework for providing reusable enterprise data services: John Wiley & Sons; 2015