ONTOLOGY-DRIVEN INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN ENSURING THE CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTORS AND PHARMACISTS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issue of medical education quality assurance, the improvement of the medical staff qualifications and the continuous professional development of doctors and pharmacists using modern information and communication technologies. The advantages of using the ontological approach to knowledge representation in the process of creation and use of medical information systems in order to provide access to the maximum amount of information through the interoperable integration and aggregation of knowledge-oriented resources and information sources are determined. A brief analysis of existing medical ontologies (from collections of highly specialized thematic ontologies to national terminology health systems), which revealed a number of disadvantages and obstacles to their use in the system of modern medical education in Ukraine is presented. The necessity of creation of a unified interoperable environment with existing ontological solutions by means of unified user interface for increasing the efficiency of continuous professional development of doctors and pharmacists is determined. The main aspects of the development of ontology-driven information systems, which can be used for the medical information systems structure, functionality and interfaces design, but also in the process of using them to solve practical problems, are outlined. The experience of using IT-TODOS cognitive software and information tools that provide interactive temporal and semantic synchronization of information resources, regardless of the format, standards and technologies of their creation, for the design and use of ontology-driven medical information systems is presented. Its functionality and the advantages of using in the process of ensuring the continuous professional development of doctors and pharmacists are described.