Medical data abstractionism: fitting an EMR to radically evolving medical information systems.

Growing and maintaining a simple and flexible EMR (Electronic Medical Record) becomes a complicated task in light of diverse and distributed legacy data representation, advancing technologies, changes in medical practice and procedure, and changes in data regulation. Utilizing several abstraction mechanisms can simplify application development and maintenance, and provide flexibility for data evolution and migration. Newer applications built on these abstractions can be the beneficiary of slower obsolescence and lower maintenance costs.