Implementing SNOMED CT in Open Software Solutions to Enhance the Findability of COVID-19 Questionnaires.

SNOMED CT fosters interoperability in healthcare and research. This use case implemented SNOMED CT for browsing COVID-19 questionnaires in the open-software solutions OPAL/MICA. We implemented a test server requiring files in a given YAML format for implementation of taxonomies with only two levels of hierarchy. Within this format, neither the implementation of SNOMED CT hierarchies and post-coordination nor the use of release files were possible. To solve this, Python scripts were written to integrate the required SNOMED CT concepts (Fully Specified Name, FSN and SNOMED CT Identifier, SCTID) into the YAML format (YAML Mode). Mappings of SNOMED CT to data items of the questionnaires had to be provided as Excel files for implementation into Opal/MICA and further Python scripts were established within the Excel Mode. Finally, a total of eight questionnaires containing 1.178 data items were successfully mapped to SNOMED CT and implemented in OPAL/MICA. This use case showed that implementing SNOMED CT for browsing COVID-19 questionnaires is feasible despite software solutions not supporting SNOMED CT. However, limitations of not being able to implement SNOMED CT release files and its provided hierarchy and post-coordination still have to be overcome.

Improving the FAIRness of Health Studies in Germany: The German Central Health Study Hub COVID-19.

The German Central Health Study Hub COVID-19 is an online service that offers bundled access to COVID-19 related studies conducted in Germany. It combines metadata and other information of epidemiologic, public health and clinical studies into a single data repository for FAIR data access. In addition to study characteristics the system also allows easy access to study documents, as well as instruments for data collection. Study metadata and survey instruments are decomposed into individual data items and semantically enriched to ease the findability. Data from existing clinical trial registries (DRKS, clinicaltrails.gov and WHO ICTRP) are merged with epidemiological and public health studies manually collected and entered. More than 850 studies are listed as of September 2021.