Combining OpenEHR archetype definitions with SWRL rules - a translation approach

Abstract

The interoperability of electronic healthcare information systems is critical for a more effective healthcare management. Several specifications and standards have been created for facilitating such interoperability at different levels. Among them, the OpenEHR initiative emphasizes the sharing of flexible specifications of healthcare information pieces in the form of archetypes. However, the OpenEHR ADL language does not provide support for rules and inference which are important pieces of clinical knowledge. This paper reports on an approach to convert ADL definitions to OWL and then attach rules to the semantic version of the archetypes. This allows for an automated means to reuse knowledge expressed in the form of rules which is also flexible and follows the same philosophy of sharing archetypes. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.