A semantic web based framework for the interoperability and exploitation of clinical models and EHR data

The advent of electronic healthcare records (EHR) systems has triggered the need for their semantic interoperability, which is reinforced by the opportunities for the secondary use of EHR data. The joint use of EHR standards and semantic resources has been identified as key for semantic interoperability. To date, existing tools focused on EHR standards permit to create, search, explore clinical models and to map data sources to clinical models, but do not provide an appropriate support and integration of semantic resources or permit the secondary use of EHR data. In this paper we describe an OWL-based framework that leverages EHR and Semantic Web technologies for the interoperability and exploitation of archetypes, EHR data and ontologies. It also enables the secondary use of clinical data. This framework has been implemented in the Archetype Management System (ArchMS). We also describe how ArchMS has been used in a real study in the colorectal cancer domain.