Form follows function: model-driven engineering for clinical trials

  • Authors:

  • Jim Davies;Jeremy Gibbons;Radu Calinescu;Charles Crichton;Steve Harris;Andrew Tsui

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK;Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK;Computer Science Research Group, Aston University, Birmingham, UK;Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK;Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK;Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

  • Venue:
  • FHIES'11 Proceedings of the First international conference on Foundations of Health Informatics Engineering and Systems
  • Year:
  • 2011

  • Models for forms

    Proceedings of the compilation of the co-located workshops on DSM'11, TMC'11, AGERE!'11, AOOPES'11, NEAT'11, & VMIL'11

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Abstract

We argue that, for certain constrained domains, elaborate model transformation technologies--implemented from scratch in general-purpose programming languages--are unnecessary for model-driven engineering; instead, lightweight configuration of commercial off-the-shelf productivity tools suffices. In particular, in the CancerGrid project, we have been developing model-driven techniques for the generation of software tools to support clinical trials. A domain metamodel captures the community's best practice in trial design. A scientist authors a trial protocol, modelling their trial by instantiating the metamodel; customized software artifacts to support trial execution are generated automatically from the scientist's model. The metamodel is expressed as an XML Schema, in such a way that it can be instantiated by completing a form to generate a conformant XML document. The same process works at a second level for trial execution: among the artifacts generated from the protocol are models of the data to be collected, and the clinician conducting the trial instantiates such models in reporting observations--again by completing a form to create a conformant XML document, representing the data gathered during that observation. Simple standard form management tools are all that is needed. Our approach is applicable to a wide variety of information-modelling domains: not just clinical trials, but also electronic public sector computing, customer relationship management, document workflow, and so on.