Parent Package: common
Package rm::common::change_control
In various openEHR reference models, the semantics of formal change control are required. There are two architectural aspects of managing changes to data.
The first is the concept of a complex information object, being versioned in time, meaning that its creation and all subsequent modifications cause new “versions” to be created, rather than literally overwriting the existing data. Each version includes an audit trail, typically containing the dentity of a user, the date/time of the change, and a reason for the change.
The second aspect recognises that repositories are made up of complex information objects, and that changes are not in fact just made to individual objects, but to the respository itself. Any change by a user may change more than one versioned object in the repository, and the set of such changes - a “change-set” - constitutes the logical unit of change to the repository, taking it from one valid state to the next.