A framework for semantic interoperability in healthcare: a service oriented architecture based on health informatics standards.

Healthcare information is composed of many types of varying and heterogeneous data. Semantic interoperability in healthcare is especially important when all these different types of data need to interact. Presented in this paper is a solution to interoperability in healthcare based on a standards-based middleware software architecture used in enterprise solutions. This architecture has been translated into the healthcare domain using a messaging and modeling standard which upholds the ideals of the Semantic Web (HL7 V3) combined with a well-known standard terminology of clinical terms (SNOMED CT).