Background
To make sense of huge variation with thousands of data types and millions of codes from thousands of providers using scores of different systems, it is useful to create an information model covering a data model, an ontology of concepts, value sets bound to the data model.
It is useful to visualise the information model via publicly accessible web application and a set of APIs that enable users and systems to use the data within the model.
Having established such a model , it is then possible to construct logical definitions of query and concept sets that can then be used on the data published from the sources. The information model thus contains models of set definitions and queries.
Services that link and normalise the data can use the model and/ or the ontologies within it, creating maps between source data and a common model.
This articles and linked pages herein describe one approach to an information model based on linked data principles as established as part of the idea of a semantic web.
Most models in healthcare either use bespoke health care languages such as those used by HL7 or openEHR, or conventional entity diagrams with a separate terminology server. The approach used in the Endeavour information model is to adopt and adapt the Main stream semantic web languages, based on a view of health data as a graph with the nodes and edges modelled as RDF IRIs.
The model is not a new standard or an invention of new concepts. Instead, the content of the Endeavour IM incorporates concepts from a number of recognised sources including:
a) The main stream health ontology Snomed-CT with extensions to accommodate the unmapped NHS data dictionary attributes, local codes, and code taxonomies such as OPCS, ICD10 as well as the legacy mappings to Read 2.
b) The main stream messaging model resources such as FHIR making the IM FHIR compatible via simple transforms.
c) The main stream query definitions such as QOF rules and dataset definitions.
Health Information model
An overview of the approach to the Health information model, the purpose, and type of content.
Information model languages
The Semantic Web languages used to build the various components of the information models
Health query definition
Pages describing an approach to modelling query definitions with outputs in a machine readable form, covering the majority of health data query requirements.
Information model meta model
The class model (shapes model) of the classes used to hold the model content.
Mapping concepts and transforming published data
Introduces the approaches to matching and mapping concepts and the structural maps used in transforming published data.
Architectures -
A high level overview of the architectures that the technologies contribute to
GitHub repositories
Descriptions and information relating to the application source code, .