Open Concept Lab

Open Concept Lab

Open Concept Lab is an open-source terminology management system for the global community.

Approach

The Open Concept Lab (OCL) is a suite of open-source tools to manage and use health terminologies. The OCL Terminology Service is a RESTful API with support for FHIR based on the Sharing Valuesets and Concept Maps (SVCM) IHE Profile. It is designed to be used in a shared, cloud-based environment or as an architectural component within an organization data exchange architecture. The OCL TermBrowser is the primary tool for searching and managing content on an OCL Terminology Server, and it can also integrate with other SVCM-compatible servers, such as HAPI FHIR. OCL Online is the hosted instance of all OCL tools at openconceptlab.org. that is pre-loaded key terminologies, including ICD-10, SNOMED-GPS, LOINC, and much more. OCL Online lowers barriers to getting started with terminology and to collaborating with the global community.

OCL targets three user personas: 1. A Terminology Publisher manages and publishes original terminology resources, leveraging and mapping to reference vocabularies and other user-generated content. 2. A Terminology Implementer adapts and repackages terminology resources from terminology publishers, such as WHO DDCC/SMART Guidelines or CIEL, based on local implementation needs, e.g., by adding a local dialect or mapping to local codes. 3. A Terminology Consumer searches compares, and exports terminology resources that are relevant to his/her project(s) to achieve a better understanding of concepts, use the right codes, and navigate relationships between terms.

Implementations

OCL Online serves users across the globe, with larger ongoing or emerging implementations in Bangladesh, Dominica, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Malawi, Uganda, and United States. Self-hosted implementations of OCL include Kenya and Chile. Several organizations with global reach also use OCL, including WHO, CDC and PEPFAR.

Resources

• Website: https://openconceptlab.org/
• Source Code:
  • https://github.com/OpenConceptLab/oclapi2
  • https://github.com/OpenConceptLab/oclweb2
• Articles:
  • https://ebooks.iospress.nl/pdf/doi/10.3233/978-1-61499-564-7-780
  • https://ebooks.iospress.nl/pdf/doi/10.3233/SHTI190300
  • https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-54984-6_9
  • https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386505621000599?casa_token=_9whHxxY_l8AAAAA:8PqhNljjLPM2A1BNujY41WOwjUjAkzCBWqpEN_71F2eF6g3_UU9n28t1rUlQ3d5zWoVughMf2g
  • https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-41215-9_25