Semantic patient information aggregation and medicinal decision support.
Although the health care sector has already been subjected to a major computerization effort, this effort is often limited to the implementation of standalone systems which do not communicate with each other. Interoperability problems limit health care applications from achieving their full potential. In this paper, we propose the use of Semantic Web technologies to solve interoperability problems between data providers. Through the development of unifying health care ontologies, data from multiple health care providers can be aggregated, which can then be used as input for a decision support system. This way, more data is taken into account than a single health care provider possesses in his local setting. The feasibility of our approach is demonstrated by the creation of an end-to-end proof of concept, focusing on Belgian health care providers and medicinal decision support.
Department of Electronics and Information Systems-Multimedia Lab, Ghent University-IBBT, Gaston Crommenlaan 8 Bus 201, B-9050 Ledeberg-Ghent, Belgium. pieterjan.depotter@ugent.be
Pieterjan
P
De Potter
Hans
H
Cools
Kristof
K
Depraetere
Giovanni
G
Mels
Pedro
P
Debevere
Jos
J
De Roo
Csaba
C
Huszka
Dirk
D
Colaert
Erik
E
Mannens
Rik
R
Van de Walle
D001530:Belgium; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D020407:Internet