Building ontology-based temporal databases for data reuse: An applied example on hospital organizational structures

Keeping track of data semantics and data changes in the databases is essential to support retrospective studies and the reproducibility of longitudinal clinical analysis by preventing false conclusions from being drawn from outdated data. A knowledge model combined with a temporal model plays an essential role in organizing the data and improving query expressiveness across time and multiple institutions. This paper presents a modelling framework for temporal relational databases using an ontology to derive a shareable and interoperable data model. The framework is based on: OntoRela an ontology-driven database modelling approach and Unified Historicization Framework a temporal database modelling approach. The method was applied to hospital organizational structures to show the impact of tracking organizational changes on data quality assessment, healthcare activities and data access rights. The paper demonstrated the usefulness of an ontology to provide a formal, interoperable, and reusable definition of entities and their relationships, as well as the adequacy of the temporal database to store, trace, and query data over time.