1. A semantic
information system for
Healthcare
Dr. Peter Scholten the Netherlands
Dr. Ji Jie China*
* In cooperation with Prof. Rung Ching Chen, Chaoyang University of Technology, Taiwan

2. Semantic is the study of meaning (within some context).
Semantic web:
The Semantic Web is a system that enables machines to
"understand" and respond to complex human requests
based on their meaning.
Semantic information system for Healthcare:
Is a semantic web system based on an ontology for
Healthcare.

3. efficiency
effectivity
prevention
costs
Healthy Sick Better
Influence prevention, efficiency and effectivity on costs

4. Loketgezondleven.nl
Nationale Atlas Volksgezondheid

5. An Ontology
• Defines
– a common vocabulary
– a shared understanding
– re-use of domain knowledge.
• Is an explicit description of a domain:
– Concepts (classes, subclasses and superclasses)
– properties and attributes of concepts
– constraints on properties and attributes
– Individuals (often, but not always)

6. - Protégé: an ontology editor
• RDF
• RDFS
• OWL • SPARQL
• SWRL • SQWRL
• DLQuery
- W3C
- OWL Generator (incl. Restful service
based on list, rules and urls)

7. the book has a title with value "Javascript"

8. the book has a title with value "Javascript"
Subject property object
This is the essence of RDF: the (s,p,o) triple
Any expression in RDF is a collection of triples

9. An ontology describes the concepts in the domain and also the
relationships that hold between those concepts.

10. Person Married with
Peter Roos
Jan Marleen
Person Jan is Married with Marleen.
With who is Marleen married ?

11. Diseases Symptoms
hasSymptom
class isSymptomOf class
An inverse property:
hasSymptom is inverse of isSymptomOf

12. OWL
properties

13. Symptom 1
disease
Symptom 2
Symptom 3

14. Select symptom
disease Candidate symptom
Candidate symptom

15. Select symptom
disease 1 Candidate symptom
disease 2 Select symptom
Candidate symptom

16. url1 Select symptom
disease 1 url2
url3 Candidate symptom
disease 2 url4
url4 url5 Select symptom
url6 Candidate symptom

17. Symptom checker
What can be wrong with me,
I feel drye throut.
query
result

18. Candidate
Disease 1 symptom
Do you have one or more of
the next symptoms Disease 2
Select
symptom
Candidate
symptom
Symptoms of Laryngitis Symptoms of sore-throat

19. Prevention Diseases Causes
Health
Improvement
Patient
Symptom
Shared
experiences
No treatment
Influence factor
Treatment
Individu
Self treatment Orthose
Specialist
Suppliers
Allergy
“repaired” Prothese
Medicine
Address
Qualification
Semantic health care system

20. Question: Can I use medicine for it?
Query: Medicines and canCure value Laryngitis
Answer: No medicine found
Suggestion: Look at Url1, Url2, … or contact your doctor

21. Question: Where can I find a good family doctor?
Query: Professionals and hasProfession value family doctor

22. Complex example
Question: What can be wrong with me, I feel fatigue.
Query: Diseases and hasSymptoms value “fatique”

23. 158 diseases found

25. Symptom checker
Fatigue + Extreme-hunger => ‘Possible’ Diabetes
By interaction with symptom checker:
=> High risk Diabetes

26. Conclusion:
Some symptoms are so vague or
complex (relations with more diseases)
or in cases of multimorbidity
that using a Symptom Checker
can improve the quality of
the diagnoses.

27. Question: What kind of medicine can help me?
Query: Medicines and canCure value Diabetes

29. Decision Support System

30. Traditional approach
Semantic
Query Constructor
Application
Natural language
Health Care
Semantic approach

31. NLP processor
Start / end class
Problem based on k-nearest
neighbour classifier
Question Calculate route
Feedback by expert
Query
Fine tuning

32. Demo:
• Symptom Checker
• Decision Support System
• Query constructor based on NLP