Architectural review of the BRIDG model (U01)

Samvit Solutions, Llc, Reston VA

Investigators

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY The BRIDG model is a collaborative effort to produce a shared view of the semantics of the biomedical research domain and to provide the framework to enable semantic-based interoperability. The stakeholders of BRIDG are CDISC, HL7, FDA, ISO and NCI. Since 2004, this shared domain-of-interest has been defined as protocol-driven research and its associated regulatory artifacts. In 2014, this scope was broadened to include life sciences research. This change in scope was to support the domain of translational research from bench to bedside thus providing the foundation for breaking the silos between life sciences research and clinical research semantics. Use cases spanning these domains are rapidly increasing and the goals of precision medicine require linking clinical and molecular data. The BRIDG model with its 4.0 release is the first step in providing the platform to support development of the common semantics for the shared concepts between the domains and thus enable interoperability. Although the scientific rationale for broadening the scope of the BRIDG model is a move in the right direction, it has created a technical and model management challenge for the BRIDG model. If the BRIDG project continues to follow the principles of harmonizing and bringing in all the new domains of biomedical research, the model will grow in an exponential manner and become un-manageable. The other architectural issue for consideration is the requests by the user-community to get smaller and more domain-friendly (subject matter friendly) consumable and usable views of BRIDG. There has also been an occasional request for alternate representations of the BRIDG semantics such as RDF, OWL, etc. There has also been an increased interest in making BRIDG more implementable and usable to support interoperability across the domains of healthcare. To address these challenges, and to ensure that BRIDG continues to meet its original objectives of providing the framework to enable semantic interoperability while becoming more sustainable, accessible and usable model, we propose approaching the architecture review of BRIDG under this grant with the following three aims: (1) map BRIDG to FHIR and assess feasibility of the model to be represented as a collection of HL7 FHIR resources; (2) formalize a modeling-by-reference approach as a way to link related standards of biomedical research, and (3) develop a plan to re-organize BRIDG classes to make it easily consumed.