The ontology services can be categorised into two main forms
- An Application that enables people to view and maintain ontologies, value sets, information models and query definitions
- A set of (REST) APIs so that the resources can be extracted and used by other systems i.e. integrated into other systems.
Information model viewer and manager
The model manager has two forms
IM Directory and viewer
A viewer form. The development version of the information model viewer is at IM Viewer This has free access and can be used to browser various artefacts
Artefacts include
- The major health ontologies such as Snomed-CT (UK version and London extensions), considered as "core ontology"
- The standard code based taxonomies such as OPCS-4 and ICD10 and the maps between them and the core ontology
- The local code schemes such as EMIS, TPP and Hosptital trusts, and legacy code taxonomies such as Read 2 and CTV3 and the maps between them and the core ontology
- The common data model, a schema independent set of entity types and properties created as a single model holding the real data as mapped from source healthcare providers.
- Maps between source health data and the common data model, applying context to source data.
- Library of value sets bound to the fields within the model
- Library of concepts sets used in queries including QOF concept sets, Snomed reference sets, local query libraries from CEG/QMUL.
- Library of query definitions used as actual operational queries for data on health records.
IM Manager
An application for maintaining the content of the information model including the generation of sets, query definitions, new concepts
- (FHIA manager form. This enables the authoring of new concepts, concept sets, value sets, transformation maps, data model shapes and query definitions. The information model manager (IM manager) is a multi modular web application designed to provide a view of the and to support the authoring of the content of the model.
Information service APIs
As well as the information model manager and various modules, the service provides a suite of APIs to support the use of data held within the information model libraries.
Get expanded concept set (FHIR)
The value set generator returns a list of concepts that are defined by a set definition for use in queries, thus supporting advanced subsumption_testing against health care records.
Am expanded set can also contain details of mappings between core ontological concepts and legacy code systems where mappings are automated. Expansions also take account of concept replacements or substitutions thus enabling historical data to be retrieved.
The set generator API accepts the IRI of a value set either in full, or relative to a baseline IRI e.g.. http://DiscoveryDataService/InformationModel#CSET_Covid1 or simple VSET_Covid1, and returns a list of concepts to be used in the query. The API supports both core concepts and original codes that have been mapped to the core concepts, depending on whether the database uses Discovery concepts or actual original codes
Get Map APIs
The information model server provides a number of APIs and utilities that support the mapping of original fields and values into the common information model.
The data mapping APIs article describes the use of the mapping server's mapping APIs to support inbound and outbound data transformation processes that involve a map between two data models. The map maker manager article describes the way that the map maker manager operates when authoring maps
For example there are a set of Mapping hint algorithms that are machine assisted approaches to improving the speed and accuracy of mapping.
Get address and Get UPRN API
As well as providing an application the service supports the UPRN REST API, which enables a system to make a call to the UPRN address matching service with an address, and receive a response with the matched address and UPRN
Distribution services
As well as accessible by APIs and applications, the information model services provide distribution facilities for content of the IM for use in subscriber data bases or subscriber applications. All content of the information model can be distributed both in bulk and delta form
Set distributor
The concept and value set distributor maintains tables of value sets for databases that use local instances of the Discovery information model.
This is part of the information model distribution service that runs on an application server, and is designed to detect changes to the content of the information model and regenerate the value sets from the value set definitions. The value sets are regenerated whenever a value set definition changes or whenever there is an update to the concepts within the information model.