Talk at SEMANTiCS 2017 www.semantics.cc

1. Developing a Medicines Catalogue using
Linked Data Sources
James Humffray
Information Manager
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY14/08/2017

2. Agenda
14/08/2017
About Healthdirect Australia
The Australian Health Thesaurus (AHT)
Medicines issues
Development of Terminology Service
Current and future developments
Q&A
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

3. 3
Who we are
Healthdirect Australia – A national, government-owned, not-for-profit organisation
About us
What we do
We develop and deliver a range of digital health and telehealth services
Objective
To provide every Australian with 24/7 access to the trusted information and advice they
need to manage their own health and wellbeing

4. 14/08/2017
About us – Our services
mindhealthconnectMy Aged CarePregnancy, Birth and Baby
Carer Gateway Get HealthyNational Health Services Directory
healthdirect after hours GP helpline Quitline
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

5. Australian Health Thesaurus
(AHT)
• Thesaurus of medical, health and human services
related concepts
• Reflects the current Australian health and human
services environments
• Integral to search and discovery capability
• Improves users search experience
• Consumer focused

6. Australian Health
Thesaurus (AHT)
• Originally developed by Dept. of Health and
Ageing (DOHA)
• Based on Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) -
maintained by US Library of Medicine
• Updated regularly to reflect;
• user analytics, eg Google Analytics search
terms
• current news developments, eg. Zika virus
• environmental research/analysis eg. Aged
care

9. Content publication process

10. How do we use the AHT?
Classification
purposes
Relevance in
search results
Auto-suggestion
Displaying
contextual
elements on sites
Manage
medicines data

11. Medicines issues
• Quality of search results for medicines were very
poor!
• Too many results were returned
• Need to allow searching by both brand
names and generic drug names
• Health literacy issues
• “A review of Healthdirect’s telephony and digital
medication services” report

12. What was our solution?
Identify
• Australian
medicine sources
1
Develop
• Triple store
platform
2
Ingest
• Data from
sources
3
Map
• Relationships
between datasets
4
Present
• Data to users
5

13. Data sources
• Australian Health Thesaurus (AHT)
• Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT)
• Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)
• Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods
(ARTG)
• Consumer Medicines Information (CMI)
leaflets
• Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)
• GuildLink medicine images

14. Data sources
Sources What data? Why important?
Australian Medicines
Terminology (AMT)
National terminology provides
standard naming conventions
Backbone of data – links data
together
Australian Register of
Therapeutic Goods (ARTG)
Descriptions, links to Consumer
Medicines Information leaflets
Consumer information about
active Australian Trade Products
Consumer Medicines
Information (CMI)
Side effects, when to take, when not
to take, contra-indications etc
Most important information
people want to know
Pharmaceutical Benefits
Scheme (PBS)
Is it being subsidised by the
government?
Financial costs of medicines
GuildLink Pill images Enhances look of pages
Australian Health
Thesaurus (AHT)
Medicinal products, mappings to
other coding systems
Control list – can omit medical
devices, complementary medicine

15. Data sources - Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT)
Medicinal
Product
Medicinal
Product Unit of
Use
Medicinal
Product Pack
Trade Product
Trade Product
Unit of Use
Trade Product
Pack
Containered
Trade Product
Pack
salbutamol
salbutamol 200
microgram
inhalation: powder
for, 1 capsule
salbutamol 200
microgram
inhalation: powder
for, 100 capsules
Ventolin
Ventolin 200 microgram
inhalation: powder for, 200
microgram unit dose
Ventolin 200 microgram
inhalation: powder for,
120 unit doses
Ventolin 200 microgram
inhalation: powder for, 120 unit
doses, blister pack

16. Data sources –
Australian
Register of
Therapeutic
Goods (ARTG) -
TGA

17. Consumer
Medicines
Information
(CMI)

18. Data sources -
Pharmaceutical
Benefits
Scheme (PBS)

19. Data sources –
GuildLink pill
images

20. Data sources -
The Australian
Health
Thesaurus (AHT)

21. Healthdirect Medicines
Data sources
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY14/08/2017
Healthdirect
Terminology
Service
Australian
Health
Thesaurus
TGA – Aust.
Register of
Therapeutic
Goods
PBS
Australian
Medicines
Terminology
(AMT)
Inappropriate
medicines for
older people
Medicine
use in
Pregnancy
GuildLink
Medicine
images

22. Mappings in Terminology Service
TGA
PBS
Medicinal
Product
Medicinal
Product
Unit of Use
Medicinal
Product
Pack
Trade
Product
Trade
Product Unit
of Use
Trade
Product Pack
Containered
Trade
Product Pack
AHT
AMT
GuildLink

27. 14/08/2017 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
What does a user see?

28. 14/08/2017 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
What does a user see?

29. What does a user see?
14/08/2017 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

30. 8/14/2017 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

31. Current developments
14/08/2017 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
SNOMED
LOINC ICPC ICD-10
Drugbank
Anatomical Therapeutic
Chemical code (ATC)
Food and drug
interactions
National Health
Services Directory
Symptom
Check
ServicesSymptom Checker
flows

32. Integrating with personal
Health Record
14/08/2017 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

33. Questions?
8/14/2017 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
• Contact:
james.humffray@healthdirect.org.au
• Website:
https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/