Ontology driven health information systems architectures enable pHealth for empowered patients

The paradigm shift from organization-centered to managed care and on to personal health settings increases specialization and distribution of actors and services related to the health of patients or even citizens before becoming patients. As a consequence, extended communication and cooperation is required between all principals involved in health services such as persons, organizations, devices, systems, applications, and components. Personal health (pHealth) environments range over many disciplines, where domain experts present their knowledge by using domain-specific terminologies and ontologies. Therefore, the mapping of domain ontologies is inevitable for ensuring interoperability. The paper introduces the care paradigms and the related requirements as well as an architectural approach for meeting the business objectives. Furthermore, it discusses some theoretical challenges and practical examples of ontologies, concept and knowledge representations, starting general and then focusing on security and privacy related services. The requirements and solutions for empowering the patient or the citizen before becoming a patient are especially emphasized.