Toward a patient safety upper level ontology.

Area of Science:

• Medical Informatics
• Ontology Engineering
• Patient Safety Science

Background:

• Patient Safety (PS) standardization is crucial for improving interoperability and knowledge sharing in incident reporting systems.
• Current systems lack a rigorous, standardized framework for organizing patient safety data.
• International collaboration in patient safety relies on shared understanding and data exchange.

Purpose of the Study:

• To align the Patient Safety Categorial Structure (PS-CAST) with the Basic Formal Ontology version 2 (BFO2).
• To enhance the rigor of the underlying organization of patient safety data.
• To facilitate the sharing of instances of concepts within the PS-CAST.

Main Methods:

• A top-down approach was employed for ontology development.
• The PS-CAST was mapped and aligned to the BFO2 upper-level ontology.
• Conceptual alignment and instance sharing strategies were developed.

Main Results:

• Successful alignment of PS-CAST with BFO2, providing a more rigorous ontological foundation.
• Established a framework for sharing instances of patient safety concepts.
• Demonstrated a significant step towards a standardized domain ontology for patient safety.

Conclusions:

• The alignment of PS-CAST to BFO2 significantly enhances data organization and interoperability.
• This work provides a foundation for a WHO-accepted information model for patient safety.
• Standardized ontologies are essential for advancing global patient safety initiatives.