Asian Journal Of Social Pharmacy

Abstract: Objective To describe an approach to designing a drug ontology model from a pharmaceutical e-commerce perspective to achieve information sharing and interoperability. Methods Several major drug terminology standards and database sources were analyzed to define the relationships of specific data items so as to provide unified definitions and representations for data items. The data to be standardized was identified by building a hierarchical structure of classifications, defining the attributes of these classifications, and assigning data types for each attribute. Results and Conclusion A hierarchical structure model of ontology, named CEDO was built based on major drug terminology standards and database sources. CEDO includes five hierarchies for central drug concepts and seven reference hierarchy concepts. The approach described in this study can provide realistic ways to build drug ontology for e-commerce in China.

Key words: domain ontology, drug terminology, drug electronic commerce, data sharing, interoperability