How ontology can be used to achieve semantic interoperability in healthcare

Abstract Semantic interoperability allows machines to share, interpret and use data without ambiguity. Semantic Interoperability is a major concern in healthcare (c.f. the EU commission 2021 report on electronic record exchange formats). The lack of interoperability with regard to electronic health record (EHR) leads to fragmentation and a lower quality of cross-institution and cross-border healthcare. The simple choice of an interchange language (HL7, FIHR etc.)is not sufficient to ensure interoperability. Healthcare interoperability is associated with multi-level and multi-sectoral complexity, and this cannot be addressed without consideration of a range of people and needs, from application design to knowledge sharing. Each transaction needs to be defined in unambiguous details as part of a complete, consistent, coherent, and machine-readable set of specifications for interoperability between the machines to minimize any potential error. We propose a systematic process to achieve healthcare interoperability, working with healthcare professionals starting from design level to implementation level. In our seminar we will explain with examples how ontology can be used to achieve semantic interoperability in healthcare. Technical requirements, including the choice of tools (e.g. Protégé); data base (e.g. GraphDB); data model (i.e. Web Ontology Language 2 (OWL2); formal specification (i.e. Description logics (DL)); and the right syntax (RDF/XML). Will be introduced.

Semantic interoperability allows machines to share, interpret and use data without ambiguity. Semantic Interoperability is a major concern in healthcare (c.f. the EU commission 2021 report on electronic record exchange formats). The lack of interoperability with regard to electronic health record (EHR) leads to fragmentation and a lower quality of cross-institution and cross-border healthcare. The simple choice of an interchange language (HL7, FIHR etc.)is not sufficient to ensure interoperability. Healthcare interoperability is associated with multi-level and multi-sectoral complexity, and this cannot be addressed without consideration of a range of people and needs, from application design to knowledge sharing. Each transaction needs to be defined in unambiguous details as part of a complete, consistent, coherent, and machine-readable set of specifications for interoperability between the machines to minimize any potential error. We propose a systematic process to achieve healthcare interoperability, working with healthcare professionals starting from design level to implementation level. In our seminar we will explain with examples how ontology can be used to achieve semantic interoperability in healthcare. Technical requirements, including the choice of tools (e.g. Protégé); data base (e.g. GraphDB); data model (i.e. Web Ontology Language 2 (OWL2); formal specification (i.e. Description logics (DL)); and the right syntax (RDF/XML). Will be introduced.
Abstract citation ID: ckac129.364 Terminologies matter -the case of ICNP and SNOMED-CT

Anthony Staines
A Staines 1 , P Hussey 1 , S Das 1 1 Centre for eIntegrated Care, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland Contact: anthony.staines@dcu.ie Terminologies can seem very abstract to end-users. While most health professionals will be familiar with some terminologies (for example MeSH (Medical Subject Headings), the controlled vocabulary thesaurus used for indexing articles for PubMed or ICD-10, WHO's terminology for disease coding), fewer will be aware of the depth and range of terminologies used in healthcare, nor of the central importance of multilingual standard terminologies in health care interoperability. Following a brief introduction to the use of terminologies, the integration of the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine -Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) will be presented, as an example of the use of terminologies, and their ongoing curation, maintenance and development.
6.G. Workshop: The European Health Data Space 2: is Europe ready to maximise the re-use of health data?
Abstract citation ID: ckac129.365 The EU's Heads of State called in October 2020 to set up a European Health Data Space (EHDS): ''The European Council welcomes the creation of common European data spaces in strategic sectors, and in particular invites the Commission to give priority to the health data space''. As a response, multiple initiatives were set-up to engage the views and expectations from EU member states in the development of the upcoming legislative proposal on the EHDS for primary (EHDS1) and secondary use of health data (EHDS2). One of these was the launch of the Joint Action (JA) Towards the European Health Data Space (TEHDAS) in February 2021. The aim of TEHDAS is to support the European Commission (EC) and Member States (MS), identifying the challenges and providing concepts and options for the EHDS2. It is built on the needs and expectations of national and international stakeholders, citizens' engagement and existing infrastructure. The major expected outcome of this JA is a sustainable roadmap towards the EHDS2 implementation promoting the cross-border sharing of health data for secondary use. The EHDS2 will benefit population health by facilitating the timely exchange of and access to health data, improving not only the care of patients but also facilitating research, epidemiology, disease prevention and data-based policy decisions. This workshop aims to provide an overview of the preparedness of MS to join the EHDS for secondary use of health data, covering current state-of-play of health data management systems in the EU, barriers on the secondary use of health data, the ongoing work on the development and deployment of the EHDS2 infrastructure and finally, how population health research can benefit from the EHDS2. The workshop will begin with a short introduction on the TEHDAS JA, followed by a presentation on the outcomes of the TEHDAS country visits. In these country visits, the state-of-play of the health data management system and the preparedness to join the EHDS2 were mapped in 12 different EU MS. The next presentation will continue with the results from a study that collected more evidence on iii148 European Journal of Public Health, Volume 32 Supplement 3, 2022