title: An ontology-based hierarchical semantic modeling approach to clinical pathway workflows.
abstract: This paper proposes an ontology-based approach of modeling clinical pathway workflows at the semantic level for facilitating computerized clinical pathway implementation and efficient delivery of high-quality healthcare services. A clinical pathway ontology (CPO) is formally defined in OWL web ontology language (OWL) to provide common semantic foundation for meaningful representation and exchange of pathway-related knowledge. A CPO-based semantic modeling method is then presented to describe clinical pathways as interconnected hierarchical models including the top-level outcome flow and intervention workflow level along a care timeline. Furthermore, relevant temporal knowledge can be fully represented by combing temporal entities in CPO and temporal rules based on semantic web rule language (SWRL). An illustrative example about a clinical pathway for cesarean section shows the applicability of the proposed methodology in enabling structured semantic descriptions of any real clinical pathway.
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Engineering & Logistics Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Min Hang District, 200240 Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Zhibin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Xiaodi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Diao
authors.forename: Dong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Du
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D002585:Cesarean Section / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D019091:Critical Pathways; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D020407:Internet; D009774:Obstetrics / Q000379:methods*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011381:Programming Languages; D012660:Semantics; D018511:Systems Integration