The challenges of electronic prescription systems based on semantic web technologies

Abstract

The technology developed for interoperable autonomous systems has significantly changed during the past few years. However, this new technology based on Semantic Web is not yet deployed in electronic prescriptions systems. On the other hand, during the past few years several organizations in the healthcare sector have produced standards and representation forms using XML. This generalization of XML-technologies sets a promising starting point for the interoperability of the various organizations in the healthcare sector. However, the introduction of XML is not enough but many other XML-based technologies have to be introduced in order to achieve a seamless interoperability between the electronic prescription systems and other organizations of the health care sector. In this article we illustrate the querying facilities that the deployment of the semantic web technology can provide for electronic prescriptions systems. Furthermore we illustrate the system architecture and the ontologies as well as the ontology specification languages that are required in implementing an electronic prescription system based on semantic web technologies.