A formal investigation of semantic interoperability of HCLS systems

Semantic interoperability facilitates Health Care and Life Sciences (HCLS) systems in connecting stakeholders at various levels as well as ensuring seamless use of healthcare resources. Their scope ranges from local to regional, national and cross-border. The use of semantics in delivering interoperable solution for HCLS systems is weakened by fact that an Ontology Based Information System (OBIS) has restrictions in modeling, aggregating, and interpreting global knowledge in conjunction with local information (e.g., policy, profiles). This chapter presents an example-scenario that shows such limitations and recognizes that enabling two key features, namely the type and scope of knowledge, within a knowledge base could enhance the overall effectiveness of an OBIS. This chapter provides the idea of separating knowledge bases in types with scope (e.g., global or local) of applicability. Then, it proposes two concrete solutions on this general notion. Finally, the chapter describes open research issues that may be of interest to knowledge system developers and broader research community.