New and Improved Ontology System for Momo with Microbiology and Virology
Medexter Healthcare recently completed the re-programming of Momo's terminology. Momo contains four terminologies: microbiology, sample materials, antibiotics/antimycotics, and hospital departments. They are now part of the new ontology software allowing not only the definition of hierarchical concepts but also the definition of heterarchies. By applying this, several parent concepts may be defined for a certain specific concept. In Momo, this feature is adopted for the definition of high-level concepts such as "3MRGN" or "4MRGN". Links to all bacteria with 3MRGN or 4MRGN multi-resistance, respectively, are thus established. During processing, these high-level concepts are used in an ontology-based, bottom-up reasoning for alert services in case of multi-resistant bacteria. A fifth ontology is being added at present: a selection of virological concepts to allow for the generation of alerts in case of highly contagious viruses in previously negative patients in the hospital. The ontology software system is generic with respect to its design. It can harbor many different ontologies including large ones such as WHO's ICD-11 or SNOMED CT International. An enormously useful and practical property of the new ontology system is that its concepts can be accessed either by its natural texts or by its coded representatives. An early description of Momo's terminology can be found here and a short text on Momo's alert service here.