Improving the exchange of medical information through applied ontologies
As part of the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry, the GRIIS is joining forces with an international community that develops compatible ontologies.
An ontology is a rigorous representation of a domain of reality (e.g. the medical field). It uses language that computers understand. This allows computers to reason in an automated way. By means of computer science, we can automatically test the logical coherence of an ontology or infer new knowledge.
At the GRIIS, we develop ontologies in the biomedical field, such as an ontology of drug prescriptions or an ontology of cardiovascular diseases. These ontologies are subsequently applied in health informatics.
Ontologies can assist the linkage of health data that is diverse and heterogeneous (e.g. clinic and hospital data). With ontologies, computer systems can communicate with each other, even though they may be constructed differently.
Related scientific publications
Consult five of our most recent publications on ontologies.
Ontologies
Prescription of Drugs Ontology (PDRO)
PDRO is a realist ontology that aims to represent the domain of drug prescriptions. PDRO’s central focus is the structure of a drug prescription.
The PDRO ontology is the topic of a scientific article published in the journal Applied Ontology.
Cardiovascular Disease Ontology (CVDO)
The CVDO ontology differentiates between cardiovascular diseases, underlying disorders and associated pathological processes.
It is based on the disease model proposed by the Ontology for General Medical Science (OGMS).
Clinical Laboratory Test Document Ontology (LABO)
The LABO ontology represents documents that prescribe laboratory tests and that provide their results.
It is coordinated with OBO Foundry ontologies like the Information Artifact Ontology (IAO) and the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI).
Open source ontologies for learning health systems
The GRIIS ontology team has published a dozen open source ontologies. These knowledge models are used in software development to support health care and health systems.
Partners
Key partners
With the support of
Applied ontologies directors
Adrien Barton
CNRS research fellow at the Institut de recherche en informatique in Toulouse
Associate professor at the Département de médecine of the Université de Sherbrooke
Jean-François Ethier
Co-founder and scientific co-director of the GRIIS
Full Professor of medicine at Université de Sherbrooke
Research Chair in Health Informatics, Université de Sherbrooke
Licensed physician at the CHUS
Related scientific publications
See all our publications related to ontologies.
