Semantic Web-Based Information Systems: State-of-the-Art ...
Semantic Web-Based Information Systems: State-of-the-Art ...
Semantic Web-Based Information Systems: State-of-the-Art ...
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0 E chelberg, Aden, & Thoben<br />
care institutes connected to <strong>the</strong> network could be implemented ra<strong>the</strong>r easily, again<br />
utilising <strong>the</strong> gatekeeper role <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> TTP entity in <strong>the</strong> network. This would assure<br />
that only au<strong>the</strong>nticated entities could participate in <strong>the</strong> protocol ei<strong>the</strong>r as a requestor<br />
or as a record repository and, <strong>the</strong>refore, would provide a minimum level <strong>of</strong> quality<br />
control <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> data communicated within <strong>the</strong> network.<br />
Results<br />
The patient identification protocol establishes a concept that, to our knowledge,<br />
has not been available in <strong>the</strong> health care sector before — an undirected search for<br />
patient records (i.e., a search that does not require a priori information about <strong>the</strong><br />
location <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> records) that does not violate data protection requirements. The<br />
concept matches well with <strong>the</strong> peer-to-peer network structure established in <strong>the</strong><br />
context <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> ARTEMIS project, where many health care institutes may form a<br />
network <strong>of</strong> services in a very dynamic manner. The use <strong>of</strong> semantic annotation allows<br />
one to cope with <strong>the</strong> fact that different institutes identify patients with different<br />
demographics and that no globally unique identifier for patients will be available<br />
for <strong>the</strong> foreseeable future. The possibility <strong>of</strong> including national extensions allows<br />
one to maximise <strong>the</strong> specificity <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> search algorithm in environments that can<br />
make use <strong>of</strong> such extensions, while <strong>the</strong> inclusion <strong>of</strong> phonetic encoding allows one<br />
to improve sensitivity by gracefully handling spelling errors. The integration <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
Retrieve <strong>Information</strong> for Display protocol for <strong>the</strong> second phase (i.e., <strong>the</strong> request and<br />
transmission <strong>of</strong> clinical documents once <strong>the</strong>ir location has been identified) provides<br />
a simple read-only access to clinical documents that easily can be integrated with<br />
<strong>the</strong> existing legacy systems.<br />
An implementation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> patient identification protocol is currently under development<br />
in <strong>the</strong> context <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> ARTEMIS project. The implementation is based on <strong>the</strong><br />
ARTEMIS middleware, which provides for <strong>the</strong> peer-to-peer infrastructure required<br />
by <strong>the</strong> protocol; that is, message transmission and broadcast facilities based on <strong>the</strong><br />
JXTA peer-to-peer communication platform (Gong, 2002), a policy-based security<br />
architecture for a secure communication over unsecured networks and a pre-selection<br />
<strong>of</strong> record repositories that participate in a query based on geographical location (e.g.,<br />
“we are looking for records located in Germany only”). Pilot applications that will<br />
evaluate <strong>the</strong> protocol in a clinical setting are planned in <strong>the</strong> UK and in Turkey. From<br />
<strong>the</strong>se prototypes, we expect practical experience about use patterns, performance,<br />
and scalability <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> protocol. Krieg, Hense, Lehnert, and Mattauch (2001) report<br />
about an evaluation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> probabilistic record linkage based on control numbers,<br />
which is used in <strong>the</strong> Münster Cancer Registry in Germany. They use a set <strong>of</strong> 19<br />
control numbers computed from <strong>the</strong> patient’s name (including name <strong>of</strong> birth, prior<br />
name, and phonetic encoding <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> name components) and <strong>the</strong> day <strong>of</strong> birth. The<br />
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