Revolutionary impact of XML on biomedical information interoperability

Abstract

The use of Extensible Markup Language (XML) to implement data sharing and semantic interoperability in healthcare and life sciences has become ubiquitous in recent years. Because in many areas there was no preexisting data format, XML has been readily embraced and is having a great impact. Biomedical data is very heterogeneous, varying from administrative information to clinical data, and recently to genomic data, making information exchange a great challenge. In particular, it is hard to achieve semantic interoperability among disparate and dispersed systems-a common constellation in the fragmented world of healthcare. Moreover, the emerging patient-centric and information-based medicine approach is posing another challenge-the development and use of an integrated health record for each patient. This means that diverse data from many systems has to be generated, integrated, and become available at the point of care. This paper presents the case that XML is becoming the integration ''glue'' for biomedical information interoperability, which can lead to improvements in pharmaceuticals, genomic-based clinical research, and personalized medicine, which, for the first time, can be fine-tuned to serve individuals through their longitudinal electronic health records.

Current applications and future directions for the CDISC Operational Data Model standard: A methodological review

“…ODM does not specify the use of specific clinical items such as CDASH, nor does it provide a specific mechanism for pointing to the source of a particular CDE. Instead, ODM provides a hierarchical container for defining clinical data items according to the needs of a given study [65], as shown in Figure 3. The lack of a source definition for a clinical data item was highlighted when the ISO 11179 DECs were found missing from the ODM model [13].…”

Semantically Interoperable XML Data

“…For example, a query containing a join operation between two classes of objects is possible only if the classes are associated in the model. Model creators annotate their object-oriented models and the model’s classes and attributes with concepts from the EVS service using a tool called SIW [37], thus creating common data elements. A common data element is also associated with a value domain, which specifies a representation of said data element using concrete data types (e.g., float, integer) and permissible values (e.g., a data element can take values between −1 and +5, or can take a value from a set of discrete values).…”

Biological Information and Its Users

“…There are many reasons for this -lack of time, resources, interest, and incentives for data sharing are all cited as barriers to true information exchange [35,36]. This varies from scientific community to community, though there have been extensive calls for data sharing in the broader scientific literature [37,38]. It is often argued by scientists themselves that most information sharing is done in the form of peer-reviewed workshop papers, conference presentations, journal articles, and informal networks; therefore, sharing "raw data" is not feasible, since it would require setting up a dedicatee archive, responding to many individual requests, and other mechanisms that may be time-consuming.…”