A four stage approach for ontology-based health information system design

  • Authors:

  • Craig E. Kuziemsky;Francis Lau

  • Affiliations:

  • Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, 55 Laurier Avenue East, Ottawa ON K1N 6N5, Canada;School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria, PO Box 3050 STN CSC, Victoria BC V8W 3P5, Canada

  • Venue:
  • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Objective: To describe and illustrate a four stage methodological approach to capture user knowledge in a biomedical domain area, use that knowledge to design an ontology, and then implement and evaluate the ontology as a health information system (HIS). Methods and materials: A hybrid participatory design-grounded theory (GT-PD) method was used to obtain data and code them for ontology development. Prototyping was used to implement the ontology as a computer-based tool. Usability testing evaluated the computer-based tool. Results: An empirically derived domain ontology and set of three problem-solving approaches were developed as a formalized model of the concepts and categories from the GT coding. The ontology and problem-solving approaches were used to design and implement a HIS that tested favorably in usability testing. Conclusions: The four stage approach illustrated in this paper is useful for designing and implementing an ontology as the basis for a HIS. The approach extends existing ontology development methodologies by providing an empirical basis for theory incorporated into ontology design.