Problem

HSPC core mission necessitates a number of core services and content packages be made available to the membership, upon which higher-level assets may be developed in a collaborative manner. Terminology queries are one such service at the root of the dependency graph, and foremost on the organizational roadmap.

Requirements

Functional

...

Non-Functional

Solution

Overview

Ontoserver https://ontoserver.csiro.au/ is a closed-source terminology service developed by the Austrailian eHealth Research Centre https://aehrc.com/ , supporting a FHIR-based CodeSystem API including the $lookup and $subsumes operations needed by a typical client application. HSPC operates a instance of Ontoserver in the Amazon cloud, and syndicates pre-indexed content from a CSIRO server in Australia to receive and install pre-built binary indexes. The base API is run in read-only mode at:

https://ontoserver.hspconsortium.org/fhir

Architecture

Using CSIRO's demo in Australia has three main problematic areas:

• Round-trip packet latency to/from any client deployed in the US is high, and the public instance is not for production uses.
• SNOMED CT is localized, and US editions are not present in the AU system. Similarly, HSPC does not currently have use cases requiring AU-specific content.
• Licensing of content in the US is attained through individual NLM UMLS licenses, a matter that is not fully resolved but is easier to constrain by assuring services are bound to US jurisdiction.

For these reasons, HSPC's

Costs

Licensing 

Ontoserver is not open source, and unfortunately requires a negotiated license outside of Australia. HSPC has a limited license for evaluation of Ontoserver.

 built-in, proprietary feed-based syndication protocol.

Access

Due to the overhead involved At this time, HSPC