Ontology Outreach Advisory (OOA) Healthcare & Life Sciences Chapter

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Ontology Outreach Advisory (OOA)

Healthcare & Life Sciences Chapter

Werner Ceusters (werner.ceusters@ecor.uni-saarland.de)

European Centre for Ontological Research

VUB STARLab

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Introduction

• Ontology is a major issue in H&LSc:– ‘Ontology’ in Google: 4.310.000 hits (May 27, 2005)

• Gene Ontology (5th): gene annotation• MGED ontology (17th): micro-array experiments

– ‘Ontology’ + ‘...’ in Google:• ‘healthcare’: 71.000

– ‘Terminology and Ontology Management Systems’ (1th)

• ‘life sciences’: 59.600• ‘medicine’: 191.000

– Medicine and Metaphysics: Conference in Buffalo (1th)

• ‘biomedical’: 124.000– Ontology and Biomedical Informatics Rome 2005 (2nd)

• ‘drug’: 117.000

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Driving factor: ontology for“Semantic Interoperability”

• Proposed definitions (WHO SI group)– Two information systems are semantically

interoperable to the extent that each can faithfully carry out the tasks for which it was designed using content taken from the other

– An ontology is a representation of some pre-existing domain of reality, which

• (1) reflects the properties of the objects within its domain in such a way that there obtains a systematic correlation between reality and the representation itself,

• (2) is intelligible to a domain expert• (3) is formalized in a way that allows it to support

automatic information processing

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Problem areas

• Pharmaceutical Industry:– Bring drug discovery back to Europe:

• Make “messy” databases more useful

• Consumer health:– Opposing forces:

• Quality of information• Make them consume• Malpractice suits

• Public sector health:– Cost containment

• Cost effectiviness of treatment, prevention

• Bio-informatics world:– How to find out that a ‘discovery’ is a ‘new’ discovery ?

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An action plan for a European eHealth Area.

• By the start of 2005: – MS and EC should agree on an overall approach to

benchmarking in order to assess the quantitative, including economic, and qualitative impacts of e-Health.

• By end 2006:– in order to achieve a seamless exchange of health information

across Europe through common structures and ontologies, MS, in collaboration with the EC, should identify and outline interoperability standards for health data messages and electronic health records, taking into account best practices and relevant standardisation efforts.

• By end 2008:– the majority of all European health organisations and health

regions (communities, counties, districts) should be able to provide online services such as teleconsultation (second medical opinion), e-prescription, e-referral, telemonitoring and telecare.

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Response to invitation

• About 20 invitations on May 18• Responses:

– Positive• AGFA Healthcare: Dr. Dirk Colaert• BioWisdom: Steve Gardner• HealthGrid: Yannick Legré• Empirica: Karl Stroetmann

– Checking right person involvement• IBM Research: Amnon Shabo

– Negative• Entelos: Alex Bangs (Computer-based disease simulation systems)

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H&LSc Chapter objectives

• In line with OOA objectives• Specific goals / milestones

– Composition should be balanced:• reflecting market segments

– Biomedical and bio-informatics– Pharmaceutical (therapeutics, diagnostics)– Biomedical equipment– Healthcare services

» Therapeutic, diagnostic, health economy, insurance

• Reflecting horizontal forces within the domain– Standardisation bodies: CEN/TC251, ISO/TC215– Communities: OpenEHR, OpenClinical– Networks of Excellence– Several ‘ontology’ builders and distributors

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H&LSc Chapter objectives(continued)

• Specific goals / milestones (continued)– Concrete action plan

• Short term– Inventory of biomedical and bio-informatics ontologies– Select evaluators– Set evalution fee principles (in & out)– Invite developers for submission– Targeted dissemination and promotion plan

• Longer term– Steer towards quality improvement of ontologies– Agree on terminology for types of ontology

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Now is the right time !

• Making Biomedical Ontologies and Ontology Repositories Work (NF. Noy, DL. Rubin, M A. Musen)

– One possible solution is to create virtual ontology repositories, which would let users rate and compare the ontologies as well as making the ontologies searchable and easier to browse.

– IEEE Intelligent Systems Vol. 19, No. 6, Nov-Dec 2004

– But !!!• Are users enough qualified to do this ?

• OBO initiative: – everybody could dump an ‘ontology’ on their

server.– Recently: a mandatory set of ontological relations

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Some parameters (Robert Colomb)

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Conclusion

• H&LSc is an ideal environment for OOA– Abundance of systems– Various players– Loads of confusions

• H&LSc is a difficult environment for OOA– Strong personalities– Big budgets have been spent, nobody can afford

losing face