Querying standardized EHRs by a Search Ontology XML extension (SOX).

Motivation: The previously developed Search Ontology (SO) allows domain experts to formally specify domain concepts, search terms associated to a domain, and rules describing domain concepts. So far, Lucene search queries can be generated from information contained in the SO and can be used for querying literature data bases or PubMed. However, this is still insufficient, since these queries are not well suited for querying XML documents because they are not following their structure. However, in the medical domain, many information items are coded in XML. Thus, querying structured XML documents is crucial for retrieving similar cases or for identifying potential study participants. For example, information items of patients with a similar tumor classification documented in a certain section of the respective pathology report need to be retrieved. This requires a precise definition of queries. In this paper, we introduce a concept for the generation of such queries using a Search Ontology XML extension to enable semantic searches on structured data. Results: For a gain of precision, the paragraph of a document need to be specified, in which a specific information item expressed in a query is expected to appear. The Search Ontology XML Extension (SOX) connects search terms to certain sections in XML documents. The extension consists of a class which represents the XML structure and a relation between search terms and this XML structure. This enables an automatic generation of XPath expressions, which makes an efficient and precise search of structured pathology reports in XML databases possible. The combination of standardized Electronic Health Records with an ontology based query method promises a gain of precision, a high degree of interoperability and long term durability of both, XML documents and queries on XML documents.