What Are Ontologies, and Why Do We Need Them?
IEEE Intelligent Systems
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The provision of HIV care in developing countries may involve complex and overlapping resources; including government-run facilities non-governmental organization (NGO) or international non-governmental organization (INGO) supported services and research affiliated clinics. These resources are often motivated and funded by distinct health priorities and as a result, standards for clinical data representation and exchange are rare and data management systems are often redundant. Open-source systems such as OpenMRS and OpenClinica provide an opportunity to leverage available systems to improve standards and increase interoperability. Nevertheless, continuity of care and data sharing between these systems remains a challenge, particularly in populations with changing health needs, high mobility, and inconsistent access to health resources. As a prerequisite to improving interoperability between systems, use cases for clinical information exchange are first identified. We then characterize data models from nine clinical information systems, standards, and ontologies pertinent to HIV clinical care and research in Kenya. The data fields commonly used as patient identifiers are summarized, including name, date of birth, family relations and location. Finally, we present a prototype ontology to describe data standards and to enable mapping between data elements in diverse information systems.