W3C

– DRAFT –
FHIR RDF

04 December 2025

Attendees

Present
David Booth, Detlef Grittner, Eric Jahn, Erich Bremer, EricP, Ken Lord
Regrets
-
Chair
David Booth
Scribe
dbooth

Meeting minutes

R6

detlef: We found some missing parts in the fhircat fhir RDF parser

ericp: Tim was working on getting me a dump of the shex and examples, then i was going to run validation and fix what is needed. Make sure they round-trip.
… into HAPI. Then validate HAPI output.
… Tim was going to gen that from an R5 release.

Extending our ont for more semantic interop

ken: COuld be a huge effort. Should validate business cases.
… Want cross-product domain with AI applications.
… I have standard product messages coming across. Some places I've seen in public health have to do w FHIR, CCDA, and US x12 and v2. All are involved in that process. Also E-prescription.
… The other is NLP. When you take unstructured data and you need to structure it to harmonize, having an ont is beneficial.
… Most of this is on a volunteer basis, and if does not align with people's day jobs, it's hard to get cycles.

ericp: Sounds good, but predicated on starting w use cases and queries.

ken: I have a use case abt info transform. But I'm not an SME for query, with inferencing.

ericp: If you can point to "here's what I imagine", we can make sparql query.

ACTION: Ken to write up issue w suggested use case

ken: There can be a mismatch btwn an ont and FHIR data model, and how we navigate those things.

dbooth: this RDF subgroup of ITS is responsible for the RDF format of the FHIR standard.
… The ont is an extra benefit.
… FHIR license is CC0: https://build.fhir.org/license.html
… And W3C has a clear patent policy that requires free use

ken: Example of ont problem, driven from social services -- housing insecurity in USA.
… It's provided to a household (set of people) who have a set of constraints put on them by fed and local govs.
… We were not allowed to use the concept of a person.
… Also, person relations are important. That's getting some traction, because in FHIR data model only allowed patients, and the only rel they could have was to a related person, and only 1:1. Caused modeling problems.

dbooth: I believe the FHIR RDF group can add the concept of a person to the FHIR ont if we want.

ken: Eric Jahn and I have worked on that. This community group is a joint effort between W3C and HL7.
… If we decompose, there's the RDF level, then there's the FHIR ont. It's independent of the RDF. WE have freedom in the ont.

ericp: The ont w capture what we can get from the structure def. But if you want to add extra connective elements and inference we can.

ericj: HUD is using FHIR RDF, and Temple Univ also, for their DreamKG (NSF-funded) addressing homelessness.

ACTION: Ken to draft an issue of use case for extending the FHIR ont, by Dec 18

Attribution for our work

dbooth: Sebastian did an ack list.

detlef: Do we have some place for ack contributions visibly?

ericp: Suggest we attach messages mentioning product. Eg., we have FHIR R6, and thank the following contributors.

detlef: Need to discuss with our marketing guy. But everytying would be helpful.

ericp: The front page of the CG is writeable by the chairs. Should see what other groups do.

ACTION: DBooth to look into doing that on ouir CG page.

DICOM

erich: I've been on hold. Two months ago I rescanned immaging data commons, and put it into RDF w the extra things we discussed, including CDT. If anyone wants to look it's here: https://vulcan.bmi.stonybrook.edu/dcm2rdf/
… I'll have more time in Jan.

detlef: Also int in comparing qlever.

erich: I plan to have it loaded by end of Jan.

detlef: Excellent timing.
… Plan to try it with the new DICOM rep.

Holidays

dbooth: We will cancel meetings on Dec 25 and Jan 1.

ADJOURNED

Summary of action items

  1. Ken to write up issue w suggested use case
  2. Ken to draft an issue of use case for extending the FHIR ont, by Dec 18
  3. DBooth to look into doing that on ouir CG page.
Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 248 (Mon Oct 27 20:04:16 2025 UTC).

Diagnostics

Succeeded: i/Attribution for our work/ACTION: Ken to draft an issue of use case for extending the FHIR ont, by Dec 18

No scribenick or scribe found. Guessed: dbooth

Maybe present: dbooth, detlef, erich, ericj, ken

All speakers: dbooth, detlef, erich, ericj, ericp, ken

Active on IRC: dbooth