An Ontology Driven Multi-Agent Approach to Integrated e-Health Systems

Abstract

One aim of an integrated e-Health system is to improve the quality of healthcare by providing transparent access to patient information. The current health information management environment has numerous systems with varying techniques for representing and managing patient data. The increasing mobility of patients results in patient information being spread across these systems. Presented in this paper is a conceptual architecture for the interoperability of e-Health systems. This architecture uses multiple cooperating software agents that actively access, recognize, and associate the information in distributed, heterogeneous e-health systems. Using a layered ontology structure we show how ontology based multi-agent systems can be used to resolve discrepancies in terminology and/or structure. This involves a case study in a distributed Electronic Health Record (EHR) environment.