Semantic Harmonization Workflow of Health Data: Application in the Post-COVID Network Netherlands.

Publication date: May 21, 2026

Semantic interoperability in multi-source health datasets is a key barrier to data integration and reuse in biomedical research. FAIR principles promote standardization, but operationalizing them for heterogeneous clinical and patient-reported data remains challenging. We introduced a structured workflow that yields metadata-rich codebooks to support semantic interoperability. It integrates manual curation, expert-driven semantic annotation using biomedical ontologies and contextual suffixes for measurement nuances. The workflow was applied to the Post-COVID Network Netherlands (PCNN) dataset. In a representative PCNN subset, we harmonized variables across domains like demographics, COVID-19 history, and questionnaires. Mappings are designed for expert review to ensure accuracy and reproducibility.

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Concepts Keywords
Biomedical Biological Ontologies
Codebooks COVID-19
Covid Electronic Health Records
Interoperability FAIR principles
Netherlands health data
Health Information Interoperability
Humans
Netherlands
ontology mapping
Post-COVID
SARS-CoV-2
semantic interoperability
Semantics
Workflow

Semantics

Type Source Name
disease MESH COVID-19

Original Article

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