[ANN] SemTech workshop on "RDF as a Universal Healthcare Exchange Language"

I am pleased to announce that there will be a free workshop on "RDF as a 
Universal Healthcare Exchange Language" at the upcoming SemTech 
Conference in San Francisco on Monday June 3:
http://semtechbizsf2013.semanticweb.com/sessionPop.cfm?confid=70&proposalid=5296
There will also be an associated panel discussion on Wednesday June 5:
http://semtechbizsf2013.semanticweb.com/sessionPop.cfm?confid=70&proposalid=5226

Workshop leaders and panelists include:
   David Booth, Ph.D., Senior Software Architect, KnowMED
   Conor Dowling, CTO, Caregraph
   Emory Fry, Founder & CMIO, Cognitive Medical Systems
   Stanley M. Huff, CMIO, Intermountain Healthcare
   Josh C. Mandel, Research Faculty, Children's Hospital Harvard-MIT

Here is the workshop description:
[[
  Healthcare information resides and continues to rapidly grow in a 
bewildering variety of vocabularies, formats and systems in thousands of 
organizations. This makes the exchange and integration of healthcare 
information exceedingly difficult. It inhibits access to complete and 
accurate patient data, undermines the key advantage of having patient 
data in electronic form, and drives up the already high cost of healthcare.

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) 
identified the need for a universal healthcare exchange language as a 
key enabler in addressing this problem by improving healthcare data 
portability. Many familiar with Semantic Web technology have recognized 
that RDF / Linked Data would be an excellent candidate to meet this 
need, for both technical and strategic reasons. Although RDF is not yet 
well known in conventional healthcare IT, it has been beneficially used 
in a wide variety of applications over the past ten years -- including 
medical and biotech applications -- and would exceed all of the 
requirements outlined in the PCAST report.

RDF offers a practical evolutionary pathway to semantic 
interoperability. It enables information to be readily linked and 
exchanged with full semantic fidelity while leveraging existing IT 
infrastructure investments. Being schema-flexible, RDF allows multiple 
evolving data models and vocabularies to peacefully co-exist in the same 
instance data, without loss of semantic fidelity. This enables 
standardized data models and vocabularies to be used whenever possible, 
while permitting legacy or specialized models and vocabularies to be 
semantically linked and used when necessary. It also enables a limitless 
variety of related information to be semantically linked to patient 
data, such as genomic, geographic and drug interaction data, enabling 
more effective treatment, and greater knowledge discovery. Other reasons 
for adopting RDF as a universal healthcare exchange language include: 
(a) its ability to make information self-describing with precise 
semantics; (b) its support for automated inference; and (c) its 
foundation in open standards.

The purpose of this workshop is to advance the goal of getting RDF 
adopted as a universal healthcare exchange language.

   - Motivation: Why RDF / Linked Data as a universal healthcare 
exchange language?
   - Vision: What would it look like? How would it be used? What is 
being proposed?
   - Benefits: What are the benefits of RDF / Linked Data over other 
alternatives? What are other alternatives?
   - Barriers: What hurdles need to be overcome? How should they be 
overcome?
   - Roadmap: What steps should be taken by whom to achieve serious 
consideration and adoption of RDF / Linked Data as a universal 
healthcare exchange language?
   - Participation: How can I learn more? How can I support this goal?
   - Next steps: What are the next steps and action items for the 
participants of this meeting?
]]

The workshop is "by invitation only", but the main reason is just to 
ensure that we do not exceed the room capacity.  Anyone interested in 
attending is encouraged to apply by submitting this simple form:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true&formkey=dHN2ME9HRWZHN0dRS1diNkNMdm81dWc6MQ
which is also linked from the SemTech site.

I encourage all in the HCLS interest group to come and participate if 
you can.

Participants in this (free) workshop will also receive a 15% conference 
discount if they also choose to register for the rest of the conference.

Let me know if you have questions.

Thanks!
David Booth, Ph.D.
KnowMED, Inc. (Independent Consultant)

Received on Tuesday, 7 May 2013 16:08:26 UTC