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A unified structural/terminological interoperability framework based on LexEVS : application to TRANSFoRm

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Ethier, Jean-Francois, Dameron, Olivier, Curcin, Vasa, McGilchrist, Mark, Verheij, Robert A., Arvanitis, Theodoros N., Taweel, Adel, Delaney, B. and Burgun, Anita (2013) A unified structural/terminological interoperability framework based on LexEVS : application to TRANSFoRm. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Volume 20 (Number 5). pp. 986-994. doi:10.1136/amiajnl-2012-001312

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2012-001312

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Abstract

Objective:
Biomedical research increasingly relies on the integration of information from multiple heterogeneous data sources. Despite the fact that structural and terminological aspects of interoperability are interdependent and rely on a common set of requirements, current efforts typically address them in isolation. We propose a unified ontology-based knowledge framework to facilitate interoperability between heterogeneous sources, and investigate if using the LexEVS terminology server is a viable implementation method.

Materials and methods:
We developed a framework based on an ontology, the general information model (GIM), to unify structural models and terminologies, together with relevant mapping sets. This allowed a uniform access to these resources within LexEVS to facilitate interoperability by various components and data sources from implementing architectures.

Results:
Our unified framework has been tested in the context of the EU Framework Program 7 TRANSFoRm project, where it was used to achieve data integration in a retrospective diabetes cohort study. The GIM was successfully instantiated in TRANSFoRm as the clinical data integration model, and necessary mappings were created to support effective information retrieval for software tools in the project.

Conclusions:
We present a novel, unifying approach to address interoperability challenges in heterogeneous data sources, by representing structural and semantic models in one framework. Systems using this architecture can rely solely on the GIM that abstracts over both the structure and coding. Information models, terminologies and mappings are all stored in LexEVS and can be accessed in a uniform manner (implementing the HL7 CTS2 service functional model). The system is flexible and should reduce the effort needed from data sources personnel for implementing and managing the integration

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine
Divisions: Faculty of Science > WMG (Formerly the Warwick Manufacturing Group)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Medicine -- Data processing, Information retrieval
Journal or Publication Title: Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association
Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group
ISSN: 1067-5027
Official Date: 1 September 2013
Dates:
DateEvent
1 September 2013Published
14 March 2013Accepted
31 August 2012Submitted
Volume: Volume 20
Number: Number 5
Number of Pages: 9
Page Range: pp. 986-994
DOI: 10.1136/amiajnl-2012-001312
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Open Access
Funder: European Commission (EC)
Grant number: DG INFSO (FP7 247787)
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