Summary
Background: Part of the ReMINE project involved the creation of an ontology enabling computer-assisted
decision support for optimal adverse event management.
Objectives: The ontology was required to satisfy the following requirements: 1) to be able to
account for the distinct and context-dependent ways in which authoritative sources
define the term ‘adverse event’, 2) to allow the identification of relevant risks
against patient safety (RAPS) on the basis of the disease history of a patient as
documented in electronic health records, and 3) to be compatible with present and
future ontologies developed under the Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry framework.
Methods: We used as feeder ontologies the Basic Formal Ontology, the Foundational Model of
Anatomy, the Ontology for General Medical Science, the Information Artifact Ontology
and the Ontology of Mental Health. We further used relations defined according to
the pattern set forth in the OBO Relation Ontology. In light of the intended use of
the ontology for the representation of adverse events that have actually occurred
and therefore are registered in a database, we also applied the principles of referent
tracking.
Results: We merged the upper portions of the mentioned feeder ontologies and introduced 22
additional representational units of which 13 are generally applicable in biomedicine
and nine in the adverse event context. We provided for each representational unit
a textual definition that can be translated into equivalent formal definitions.
Conclusion: The resulting ontology satisfies all of the requirements set forth. Merging the feeder
ontologies, although all designed under the OBO Foundry principles, brought new insight
into what the representational units of such ontologies actually denote.
Keywords
Ontology - referent tracking - adverse events - patient safety
