Ontologies in eHealth

Ontologies in eHealth Pirkko Nykänen Professor, Health Informatics University of Tampere, Department of Computer Sciences Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 1 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

Contents •What is an ontology •eHealth •How ontologies are related to eHealth •How ontologies can be utilised in eHealth •How to manage ontologies •What we will do with ontologies Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 2 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

What is an ontology? •Philosophy: An ontology refers to a particular system of categories accounting for a certain vision of the world –this system does not depend on a particular language •Artificial intelligence: An ontology refers to an engineering artifact, constituted by a specific vocabulary used to describe a certain reality –plus a set of explicit assumptions regarding the intended meaning of the vocabulary words Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 3 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

• An ontology: A logical theory accounting for the intended meaning of a formal vocabulary – ontological commitment to a particular conceptualisation of the world (Guarino, 1998) • An ontology: An explicit specification of a conceptualisation (Gruber, 1993) • An ontology: Partial conceptualisation of a domain in terms of domain objects, their properties and relations (Benaroch, 2005) • An ontology: Study of categories of things that exist or may exist in some domain. The product of such study, an ontology, is a catalog of the types of things that are assumed to exist in a domain of interest D from the perspective of a person who uses language L to talk about domain D (Sowa, 1997) Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 4 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

Healthcare is information-intensive • Healthcare is rich on data, information and knowledge • Healthcare data is captured during clinical work and research processes but used by other processes • Clinical care of patients is shared among multiple provider enterprises (e.g. by mobile citizens) requiring information sharing • Information needs to be aggregated per-patient to allow personalised healthcare & decision support and then across populations for public health analysis and medical research • Healthcare information is multitype, complex and changing and therefore challenging to manage over time • High requirements for validity, privacy, safety and security Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 5 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

eHealth • eHealth - use of ICT to improve or enable health and healthcare –Services are offered to be used through the Internet, citizens have interaction with health professionals who look after their health needs • eHealth - not only technologies, but reengineering of health care processes, and consideration of the socio-technical aspects of design and development of ehealth systems Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 6 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

eHealth systems • One of the key problems in eHealth, health informatics is the lack of interoperability among different eHealth systems • Interoperability can be investigated in different categories in the eHealth domain – such as the interoperability of the messages exchanged between healthcare applications, interoperability of Electronic Healthcare Records (EHRs), interoperability of patient identifiers, coding systems, clinical guidelines and healthcare business processes • All these categories can be investigated in two major layers: –Syntactic interoperability layer involves the ability of two or more systems to exchange information –Semantic interoperability layer refers to the ability for information shared by systems to be understood at the level of formally defined domain concepts Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 7 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

How ontologies are related to eHealth? • Clinical research and practice –understand, treat, prevent human diseases • Data, information, knowledge must be extracted, collected, developed, processed and applied in these activities – Many different types at different epistemic and cognitive levels – Representations of these data, information and knowledge are based on observations, examinations, care records and other kinds of recorded empirical data • A shared understanding is needed on these data, information and knowledge – Specific language/ vocabularies used by health professionals to communicate medical knowledge and patient-specific information • Unambiguous communication of complex and detailed concepts, leaving the user free to make explicit his/her own conceptualisation Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 8 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

Using information • Is about querying… – Across institutional and geographical boundaries – Longitudinally in patient record – Simultaneously in many and varying data and information sources for one patient –Across cohorts of patients or studies • Meaning must formally relate to the semantic definition of the information Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 9 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

How ontologies can be utilised in eHealth? •Ontology-driven information systems –Data and information modelling, conceptual modelling –Knowledge-integration methodologies to support sharing of knowledge, data and information –Ontology mapping on IS enterprise architecture levels and components •Semantic interoperability –Distributed, inter-organisational information systems –Agreed conceptualisations, domain ontologies –Shared understanding, interpretation of concepts Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 10 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

How to manage ontologies? • Ontology modelling –An ontology editor that provides a graphical representation of the ontology and allows visual evaluation of the ontology • Ontology formalisation –Ontology description languages like OWL Web Ontology Language •Reference / top ontologies / context ontologies – partially accessible in eHealth domain •Showcase ontologies –Actor-profile ontologies –Citizen-case profile ontologies / personal health ontologies • Services / Intervention / Activity plans Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 11 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

What we will do with ontologies? –Develop a context-sensitive welfare conceptual model and ontology • citizen-centred approach for personal health A • enable life-long management and utilisation of To welfare and health related information and knowledge in an ubiquitous welfare environment –Develop an information system architecture for a life-long health and welfare record •Data and information interoperability •Enterprise architecture approach •Ontology-driven IS Evaluation: Impacts analysis based on use cases and usage scenarios Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 12 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

This research is ongoing! Pirkko.Nykanen@uta.fi Pirkko Nykänen 3.2.2010 13 Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Space in Ubiquitous Health Environment

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Ontologies in eHealth

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