HL7 RIM & Relational Database Mapping: An Ontological Approach to Achieve Mapping at Data-type Level

Abstract

Integration and interoperability are the two main requirements in today’s healthcare industry. HL7 version 3 RIM is a comprehensive model being developed by HL7 to satisfy the information needs of creating and maintaining interoperable messages and documents in health care. In healthcare organizations, relational databases are the main storage system for all persistent information. In order to achieve interoperability using HL7 standard in the healthcare organization, there is a need of mapping between HL7 RIM and relational database schema. RSM (RIM to Schema Mapping) tool which is part of Health Life Horizon (HLH) project has contributed to solve the mapping problems by providing mapping automation between HL7 standard and local healthcare databases. It has limitations in terms of uncertainty about the correctness of generated mapping results. Moreover its functionality is dependent on the availability of updated repository. This research work proposes two techniques in the existing RSM; viz. OWL mapping and XML-OWL mapping. OWL mapping provides data-type mapping and returns mapping results in the absence of repository and XML-OWL mapping provides accuracy in mapping results, thus saves time, reduces errors and provides flexibility. The proposed techniques provide 40% accuracy over (20% accuracy provided by) RSM hence provide more precision in results and better performance.