A generic transformation of HL7 messages into the resource description framework data model

Abstract

The inherent flexibility of the RDF data model has led to its notable adoption in many domains, especially in the area of life-sciences. In some of these domains, there is an increasing need to integrate data from various distributed sources. In translational medical research, an emerging domain of high relevance, the access to biomedical data sources that contain important primary data (e.g., clinical information systems or research databases) is a crucial requirement. In patient-care, information systems exchange information via a standardized application level protocol, called HL7. This paper presents a generic component for transforming such message streams into an RDF representation and loading them into an RDF database system. This allows to seamlessly integrate clinical data into biomedical Semantic Web applications.