Making knowledge on healthcare technologies understandable: an ontology for lab-on-a-chip systems

Technology for supporting diagnosis and treatment is becoming more complex. New developments are coming up and need to be evaluated from various perspectives. Researchers from other disciplines are seldom experts in healthcare technology. The relevant terminology needs to be settled to be able to communicate interdisciplinary. In this paper, we introduce an approach on how to make complex knowledge related to technological developments in healthcare accessible and understandable for experts from other domains. In particular, we consider the field of lab-on-a-chip systems [1]. For this field, we develop an ontology that enables researchers to get insights into the domain and to study the related ethical, sociological, and legal aspects.