Post on 16-Jul-2015
What's the problem?
Healthcare workflows: referrals and transitions of care patient communications quality improvement clinical trial eligibility
→ need accessible data to flow
What is FHIR?
Draft standard within HL7Open standard (→ CC0)Resources, Datatypes, Value Sets ("80/20")REST API
High conceptual alignment with sem web...But vis-à-vis RDF, FHIR "reinvents" quite a bit.
What is FHIR? Datatypes(Common structures for core meaning)
e.g. GET
All patients named "amy"/Patient?name=amy
All combined systolic+diastolic measurements/Observation?name:text=systolic+and+diastolic
/Observation?name=55284-4
/Observation?name=http://loinc.org|55284-4
What is FHIR? REST API
Chaining"All blood pressures from females"/Observation?name=55284-4& subject:Patient.gender=F
Inclusion paths"BP measurements with their component parts"/Observation?name=55284-4& _include=Observation.related.target
What is FHIR? REST API
What is FHIR? Profiles("Meta" models used to describe resources)
Not required for individual patient data…But a consistent way to host vocabsLive demo
What is FHIR? ValueSet
80/20 principle for "core"So everything is extensible (even primitives!)
"extension" vs. "modifierExtension"
"Note that, unlike in many other specifications, there can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core simplicity for everyone."
What is FHIR? Extensibility
Data and reference material in one placeRich query environmentAutomated reasoning
● Clinical care● Research● Data quality analysis
FHIR in RDF. Why?
CodeableConcept → Coding
<name> <coding> <system value="http://loinc.org"/> <code value="55284-4"/> <display value="Blood pressure systolic and diastolic"/> </coding> </name>
FHIR in RDF. URIs
CodeableConcept → Coding
<name> <text>BP</text> <coding> <system value="http://loinc.org"/> <code value="55284-4"/> <display value="Blood pressure systolic and diastolic"/> </coding> </name>
FHIR in RDF. URIs
http://loinc.org|55284-4
<birthDate value="1982-10-26"/>
Could express as_:me fhirPatient:birthDate "1982-10-26".
FHIR in RDF. Dates, strings, etc.
<birthDate value="1982-10-26"> <extension url="http://myvocab/with-days"> <valueInteger="5"/> </extension</birthDate>
Explicit relations modeled… and extensible
FHIR in RDF. Relations
<Observation> <subject value="Patient/123"></Observation>
_:bp [ a fhir:Observation Observation:subject [ a fhir:Reference; Reference:reference <Patient/123> ]].
Generate automated, simple transformationsTransparent syntactic manipulationVerbose but comprehensive
FHIR in RDF. "Idiomatic RDF"?
→ Eventually we need● idiomatic RDF● readable ontology● some automated reasoning