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alt.metadata.health: Ontological Context for Data Use and Integration

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Increasingly powerful computers and increased emphasis on evidence based decision making are creating a demand for merging and integrating data from different sources into a single data set. The demand for data is outstripping our ability to ensure data integrity, and sometimes analysis is performed on data that are not appropriate for the purposes they are used for. Here we describe problems that arise when data from different sources are merged, and we suggest that one way to add context to data so that users can make informed decisions about their ontological context is through ontology-based metadata. Examples of the problem are taken from health data with emphasis on difficulties in standardizing Emergency Room wait times. We describe eight fields that can be used to capture contextual metadata. These fields are captured using ethnographic methods from users and database stewards who frequently understand precisely how context and institutional usage have shaped interpretation of semantic fields. We argue that attaching a portable archive of ontological context to travel with data—based on information from users and developers—is a means of ensuring that data are integrated and compared in multiple contexts with greater integrity and more robust results.

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Schuurman, Nadine; Balka, Ellen (2009): alt.metadata.health: Ontological Context for Data Use and Integration. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 18, No. 1. DOI: 10.1007/s10606-008-9084-5. Springer. PISSN: 1573-7551. pp. 83-108

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data integration, data quality, health informatics, indicators, ontology, semantic interoperability

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Number of citations to item: 10

  • Samir Passi, Steven J. Jackson (2018): Trust in Data Science, In: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction CSCW(2), doi:10.1145/3274405
  • Chantelle Bailey, David Peddie, Maeve E. Wickham, Katherin Badke, Serena S. Small, Mary M. Doyle‐Waters, Ellen Balka, Corinne M. Hohl (2016): Adverse drug event reporting systems: a systematic review, In: British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 1(82), doi:10.1111/bcp.12944
  • Ellen Balka, Sandra Whitehouse, Shannon T. Coates, Dug Andrusiek (2011): Ski hill injuries and ghost charts: Socio-technical issues in achieving e-Health interoperability across jurisdictions, In: Information Systems Frontiers 1(14), doi:10.1007/s10796-011-9302-4
  • Ellen Balka, Marianne Tolar, Shannon Coates, Sandra Whitehouse (2013): Socio-technical issues and challenges in implementing safe patient handovers: Insights from ethnographic case studies, In: International Journal of Medical Informatics 12(82), doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2012.11.001
  • Julie Frizzo-Barker, Peter A. Chow-White, Anita Charters, Dung Ha (2016): Genomic Big Data and Privacy: Challenges and Opportunities for Precision Medicine, In: Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 2-3(25), doi:10.1007/s10606-016-9248-7
  • Marianne Tolar, Ellen Balka (2012): Caring for individual patients and beyond: Enhancing care through secondary use of data in a general practice setting, In: International Journal of Medical Informatics 7(81), doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2012.01.003
  • Toni Robertson, Ina Wagner (2015): CSCW and the Internet of Things, In: ECSCW 2015: Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 19-23 September 2015, Oslo, Norway, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-20499-4_15
  • Peter Thomas Darch (2022): The core of the matter: How do scientists judge trustworthiness of physical samples?, In: Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics, doi:10.3389/frma.2022.1034595
  • Lina Nilsson, Malin Hofflander, Sara Eriksén, Christel Borg (2012): The importance of interaction in the implementation of information technology in health care: A symbolic interactionism study on the meaning of accessibility, In: Informatics for Health and Social Care 4(37), doi:10.3109/17538157.2012.710683
  • Nadine Schuurman (2013): Tweet Me Your Talk: Geographical Learning and Knowledge Production 2.0, In: The Professional Geographer 3(65), doi:10.1080/00330124.2012.693873
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