Using Ontologies in Drug Prescription: The SemMed Approach

Medical prescription has been touted as following an accurate approach to addressing particular health problems. However, the importance of the process might demand considering a formal knowledge-driven procedure to ensure its correctness which can be achieved through Medical Decision Support Systems (MDSS). Semantic Technologies have emerged as a potential silver bullet to become the backbone of those particular Information Systems since it provides seamless integration and an underlying logical formalism. This paper sheds light into using ontologies for drug prescription through the SemMed model, architecture and proof-of-concept implementation, being able to face challenges in these areas and solve day-to-day problems of health professionals in terms of drug prescription.