The SPHN Schema Forge - transform healthcare semantics from human-readable to machine-readable by leveraging semantic web technologies.

Abstract

Background: The Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN) adopted the Resource Description Framework (RDF), a core component of the Semantic Web technology stack, for the formal encoding and exchange of healthcare data in a medical knowledge graph. The SPHN RDF Schema defines the semantics on how data elements should be represented. While RDF is proven to be machine readable and interpretable, it can be challenging for individuals without specialized background to read and understand the knowledge represented in RDF. For this reason, the semantics described in the SPHN RDF Schema are primarily defined in a user-accessible tabular format, the SPHN Dataset, before being translated into its RDF representation. However, this translation process was previously manual, time-consuming and labor-intensive.

Result: To automate and streamline the translation from tabular to RDF representation, the SPHN Schema Forge web service was developed. With a few clicks, this tool automatically converts an SPHN-compliant Dataset spreadsheet into an RDF schema. Additionally, it generates SHACL rules for data validation, an HTML visualization of the schema and SPARQL queries for basic data analysis.

Conclusion: The SPHN Schema Forge significantly reduces the manual effort and time required for schema generation, enabling researchers to focus on more meaningful tasks such as data interpretation and analysis within the SPHN framework.