Using knowledge graph structures for semantic interoperability in electronic health records data exchanges
In this 2022 paper published in the journal Information, Sachdeva and Bhalla of the National Institute of Technology Delhi examine electronic health records (EHRs) and their requirement for interoperability from a semantic and archetype point of view. After providing an overview of EHRs and their standards for semantic interoperability, the authors discuss how to better achieve more secure and more accurate data interoperability through the use of semantic-based archetypes. They then discuss knowledge representation and the five most common approaches to it, addressing specifically ADL, XML, OWL, and other formalisms. They then evaluated some of the best approaches and discussed their strengths and drawbacks. After brief discussion, the authors conclude that while semantic interoperability is essential to “evidence-based healthcare across heterogeneous EHR systems,” areas of study are still lacking in regards to “direct support for mapping to formal ontologies.” They suggest that ADL and OWL have their own strengths, compared to XML that has more weaknesses despite being a more global standard.
