W3C

– DRAFT –
FHIR RDF

16 April 2026

Attendees

Present
David Booth, Eric Jahn, Erich Bremer, EricP, Ken Lord, Steve Munini, Tim Prudhomme
Regrets
-
Chair
David Booth
Scribe
dbooth

Meeting minutes

R6 priorities

dbooth: Want to prioritize any R6 changes needed

tim: If we have approval for R6 changes, the implementation can be done after publication, but we'll want them in the spec (RDF page, examples, OWL, shex).
… There's a few things I'd like to change, including Concept IRIs on CodeableConcepts.
… Main thing is getting consensus on these changes.

w3c/hcls-fhir-rdf#219

w3c/hcls-fhir-rdf#224

w3c/hcls-fhir-rdf#221

w3c/hcls-fhir-rdf#223

tim: for #223, we create a new class for the element, like syntactic sugar. And we also do it for other complex elements.
… It makes the class hierarchy not match the type hierarchy.

ericp: There are a few that cannot be anonymous, becuase they are referenced elsewhere.

ACTION: EricP to review #223

tim: On #224, it's about how shex and OWL allow use of these underscore classes

tim: Recent issues: w3c/hcls-fhir-rdf#176 (comment)

ericp: This comes up in 3 places: modified elements, modified attributes, and ...

ACTION: Tim to reach out to jim for input on these OWL issues

Concept IRIs for CodeableConcepts

tim: Options for concept iris: w3c/hcls-fhir-rdf#219 (comment)

dbooth: option 3 arc is too broad

dbooth: straw poll

tim: option 1

ericp: Need examples of only Codings

ericJahn: Want to see examples

erich: ditto

ken: abstain

steve: abstain

dbooth: ok, needs more discussion

ericp: Need to see all the places that Coding is used directly.
… Then see what we gain/lose

ACTION: Tim to see all the places that Coding is used directly

Extending the ontology

https://github.com/w3c/hcls-fhir-rdf/pull/222/commits

https://github.com/eric-jahn/ucm-hcls-fhir-rdf/tree/gh-pages/docs/ucm

ken: Taking SULO principles of separating roles and entities
… around concept of Agent and Agent roles
… want guidance on: Unified Care Model (UCM) has foundational alignments with BFO, and structural alignments w SULO. Beginning to document those.
… But want to integrate also with other ontologie: FHIR ont, and linking concepts with that, and the HUD model.
… Want input on that.
… And want to add skos for closematch and exactmatch.

dbooth: want to see an example of how you envision doing it, to help think it through.

tim: You can directly make references using FHIR CodeableConcepts
… That's helpful if it is within FHIR.

ken: Not ready to delve into datatyping and CodeableConcept yet.
… But don't want to restrict that extension.

tim: We can represent these profiles as OWL classes to make more specific mappings: https://hl7.org/fhir/us/sdoh-clinicalcare/artifacts.html#profiles

ken: I sometimes get confused about the business problem you're trying to solve.

tim: We're talking about mapping FHIR to another system, within OWL and RDF.
… But FHIR also has a way to do mappings within FHIR.

ericJahn: Should start making some example RDF using CodeableConcept within FHIR and outside of FHIR.
… I think that will help everyone see if it is adaptable to real world scenarios.

ken: Granularity issue. I'm currently focused on the concept, not the binding.

tim: The social determinants of health from Gravity project, has more specific FHIR concepts.
… We can create OWL concepts that correspond to those profiles. I think it would make it easier for you to map to them.

ken: Absolutely. They've done a lot of good work on concepts.

ericJahn: We've never gone beyond: "what happens when there is no patient relation?"
… That's when we need something other than Gravity.
… Want UCM be able to do both.

ken: I can try relating a subject to a condition.

ericJahn: should do two random domains, then CodeableConcept approach

ACTION: Ken and EricJahn to make examples

ADJOURNED

Summary of action items

  1. EricP to review #223
  2. Tim to reach out to jim for input on these OWL issues
  3. Tim to see all the places that Coding is used directly
  4. Ken and EricJahn to make examples
Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 248 (Mon Oct 27 20:04:16 2025 UTC).

Diagnostics

Succeeded: s/commit/commits/

No scribenick or scribe found. Guessed: dbooth

Maybe present: dbooth, erich, ericJahn, ken, steve, tim

All speakers: dbooth, erich, ericJahn, ericp, ken, steve, tim

Active on IRC: dbooth