RE: Opening Walled Gardens: RDF / Linked Data as the Universal Exchange Language of Healthcare

I think that the core concept here is that RDF provides a common model for representation of content at the conceptual or logical level <<as well as>> for the serialized/wire format level, thereby focusing all interoperability issues on semantics rather than technology barriers, semantic transformation impedance as one moves from conceptual to implementation representations, or other serialization "brittleness" such as what occurs with vanilla XML where it is easy to produce two semantically equivalent conceptual/logical representations that serialize differently and are therefore non-interoperable.

Starting with RDF or OWL representations of the HL7 RIM (actually the MIF since you need data types and terminology bindings and there relationships to the RIM as well as the RIM itself) enables the semantic standards expressed in the "idiosyncratic formats" you mention then becomes an instance of RDF representation drawn from an underlying RDF/OWL representation, i.e. we need to base interoperability on the representation of standards in RDF.  The standards-derived artifacts then become focused on semantics rather than other spurious issues.

The first version of the HL7 MIF in OWL is now available for comment, criticism, evolution, and usage.

charlie
________________________________________
From: Sivaram Arabandi, MD [sivaram.arabandi@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 10:03 AM
To: RebholzSchuhmann
Cc: Joanne Luciano; David Booth; public-semweb-lifesci; Michel Dumontier; Conor Dowling; Rafael Richards
Subject: Re: Opening Walled Gardens: RDF / Linked Data as the Universal Exchange  Language of Healthcare

Agree with this and want to add one more - this statement from the document:
        "Meaningful Use currently mandates a patchwork of idiosyncratic formats, such as HL7, CCD/ C32, CCR, NCPDP SCRIPT, C-CDA and QRDA. While such formats provide a degree of machine processability, in comparison, RDF offers significant advantages:"

        - How can you compare RDF to these models? Surely you can serialize data that conforms to these standards into RDF, no?

thanks
Sivaram
___________________________________
Sivaram Arabandi, MD, MS
ONTOPRO
www.ontopro.com
T  832.726.2322
E  s.arabandi@ontopro.com

Think Semantics. Tame Silos.



On Jan 15, 2013, at 6:58 AM, RebholzSchuhmann wrote:

> Hi,
>
> don't know how someone reads this, who does not know all these benefits anyways. Reads as if you are selling RDF to somebody who knows half-way the benefits of RDF.
> It would have made sense to be more precise on the privacy and security issues. Neither RDF nor XML have been developed to address privacy / security, and either one is highly important in healthcare systems.  Do you have even stronger arguments for privacy and security issues?
>
> Hope this helps.
>
>    -drs-
>
> On 15/01/2013 12:41, Joanne Luciano wrote:
>> Thanks for doing this.
>> Joanne
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Jan 15, 2013, at 7:21 AM, David Booth<david@dbooth.org>  wrote:
>>
>>> FYI, here is the comment that Rafael, Michel, Conor and I submitted to
>>> the US government Office of the National Coordinator for Health
>>> Information Technology, in response to their RFC on "Meaningful Use"
>>> requirements, proposing RDF / Linked Data as a universal exchange
>>> language of healthcare:
>>> http://dbooth.org/2013/mu/MU-Stage3-RFC-Simple-Response.pdf
>>>
>>> Although it is too late to change that submitted comment (as the
>>> deadline was last night), we would still appreciate any feedback or
>>> suggestions for improvement, as I'm sure we will have to make these
>>> arguments and explanations many more times in the future.
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>> --
>>> David Booth, Ph.D.
>>> http://dbooth.org/
>>>
>>> Loss of web prodigy Aaron Swartz: http://tinyurl.com/ahe2k8c
>>>
>>> Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily
>>> reflect those of his employer.
>>>
>>>
>
> --
> D. Rebholz-Schuhmann - mailto:d.rebholz.schuhmann@gmail.com
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 15 January 2013 16:07:20 UTC