Towards Better Semantics for Services in eHealth Standards: A Reference Ontology Approach

Responding to a wide range of interoperability requirements for eHealth, the HL7 standardization organization has recently published an initial version of the SOA Healthcare Ontology (SHO). The purpose of this effort is to serve as a shared reference conceptual model, which can guide the definition of service-related aspects of future eHealth standards and solutions. In this paper, we analyse the SOA Healthcare Ontology using a well-founded ontological approach referred to as UFO-S. UFO-S is a reference ontology that characterizes the notion of service by applying the concepts of commitments and claims and harmonizing several views of services from a broad perspective. Our objective is to provide an ontological foundation to this new HL7 standardization effort. Given that UFO-S is formalized and defined according to a sound foundational ontology, we believe this paper can serve as a basis for further improvement in the formalization and revision of SHO and its conceptual representation.