Knowledge Graph Construction for Health, Lifestyle and Fitness Applications

Tracking #: 3734-4948

Authors: 
Carlo Allocca
Alessio Antonini
Riccardo Pala
Angelo Salatino
Iman Naja
Rohit Ail
Muhammad Salman Haleem
Laura Lopez-Perez
Eugenio Gaeta
Leandro Pecchia
Giuseppe Fico

Responsible editor: 
Guilin Qi

Submission type: 
Tool/System Report
Abstract: 
Digital coaching for healthcare is challenging due to the heterogeneous nature of data sources. This often leads to the development of ad-hoc pipelines customised to different combinations of formats, which are hard to maintain and easily fall out of date. In this paper, we present MatKG and HeLiFit (Health, Lifestyle and Fitness), which consist of a pipeline and an extended ontological model for scalable construction of a Knowledge Graph integrating electronic medical records, medical devices with consumer behavioural, and bio data. This fully-developed solution effectively addresses the challenge of \textit{semantic interoperability} between healthcare institutions and consumer technology providers, using standards such as FHIR and RML supporting the construction of the cross-organisation health data space needed for powering a new generation of AI solutions. Its design and development were driven by a wide range of use cases and an equivalent number of digital coaching solutions for promoting health and lifestyle recommendations on different patient cohorts and healthcare institutions in 11 countries across Europe and Asia. We extended HeLiFit to accommodate a broader range of applications, including sleep and nutrition recommendations. The infrastructure is being piloted, involving thousands of users and different pools of experts engaged in the validation of the generated recommendations. The presented system is available as an off-the-shelf scalable solution that can fast-track innovation in the field of semantic AI for healthcare.
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Tags: 
Reviewed

Decision/Status: 
Reject

Solicited Reviews:
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Review #1
Anonymous submitted on 25/Sep/2024
Suggestion:
Reject
Review Comment:

(1) Quality, importance, and impact of the described tool or system:

The paper introduces MatKG and HeLiFit, a pipeline and extended ontological model for constructing a knowledge graph to enhance digital coaching for healthcare.

However, this work lacks data statistics and detailed experimental results to demonstrate the scale and effectiveness of the constructed knowledge graph. I find it difficult to assess the importance and real-world application value of this work.

(2) Clarity, illustration, and readability of the describing paper:

The quality of the paper is poor, with weak logical structure and insufficient information. Section 4 presents numerous code examples but fails to introduce or explain their specific application value. Personally, I find these examples unnecessary.

Additionally, Section 3 contains only one subsection. Both Sections 4 and 5 conduct case study evaluations, but the logic is insufficient. It is recommended to merge the evaluation sections into Section 4 and introduce each step of the proposed pipeline in Section 3.

Review #2
Anonymous submitted on 02/Dec/2024
Suggestion:
Major Revision
Review Comment:

Summary
The paper presents MatKG and HeLiFit, an integrated solution for scalable construction of a knowledge graph in digital healthcare. These tools aim to solve the challenge of data interoperability in healthcare by merging diverse data sources such as electronic medical records (EMR), medical devices, wearables, and consumer data. The system uses standards like FHIR and RML to build a cross-organization health data space, enabling AI-powered health recommendations.

Strengths
1. This paper presents a highly integrated and scalable pipeline (MatKG) for managing and processing heterogeneous data sources in digital healthcare. This is essential for overcoming the challenges of data interoperability across healthcare institutions and consumer technologies, which is a pressing issue in modern digital health.
2. The adoption of well-known standards such as FHIR and RML for data integration and semantic interoperability is a major strength. These standards ensure that the system can integrate various data sources in a way that aligns with industry practices, providing a foundation for broader adoption and scalability.
3. The paper emphasizes the practical application of the system across diverse healthcare institutions and patient cohorts in 11 countries. This demonstrates that the solution is not just theoretical but has been validated in real-world settings, with thousands of users involved in the pilot programs.

Weaknesses
1. The download address of EMR data and PHR data should be clearly given in the paper or Github, so that the data can be obtained more quickly.
2. The paper identifies limitations in the reasoning approach, particularly in the use of crisp thresholds for activity classification. This type of binary logic may not be suitable for all cases and could limit the system's adaptability to more nuanced patient conditions or dynamic health behaviors. The system might be too rigid in interpreting complex, real-time health data.
3. While using validated clinical guidelines for recommendation generation is a strength, this approach may also limit flexibility. The system could be more innovative if it incorporated real-time patient-specific data, rather than relying heavily on predefined clinical rules, which could be too general or rigid for personalized care.
4. While the paper mentions that the system has been piloted, there is a lack of specific evaluation metrics or performance benchmarks to demonstrate the effectiveness of the system. For example, how do the recommendations compare to current digital healthcare solutions in terms of accuracy, user satisfaction, or health outcomes?