A Patient Profile Ontology in the Heterogeneous Domain of Complex and Chronic Health Conditions

There is growing interest in recent years in applying ontologies to represent disease concepts because they have the ability to depict the domain knowledge with a superior level of expressiveness and precision. Ontologies have been predominantly used to represent well-categorized disease concepts. However, there are challenges in representing the domain knowledge for heterogeneous and poorly categorized systems. In this study, a methodology to create an ontology to represent the domain knowledge for complex and chronic health conditions is explored. The domain of complex chronic conditions can be viewed not only as heterogeneous but also as dynamic with new knowledge continually evolving. The methodology includes the development of a controlled vocabulary to create the first layer of semantic interoperability. The controlled vocabulary is then converted into a patient profile ontology to add deeper semantics, conceptually and relationally in the heterogeneous domain knowledge.