MeDaX: A Graph Forged in FHIR

Introduction Clinical healthcare data in many countries is stored and exchanged using the international interoperability HL7 FHIR (Health Level 7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) standard. In Germany, for example, clinical routine data is provided in FHIR for reuse in research by the data integration centres of the Network University Medicine (NUM-DIZ). Motivation The goal of this work was to build on the FHIR format and graph database (GDB) technology to create a knowledge graph (KG) representation of the data that would make it more accessible, interpretable and available for efficient exploration and complex analysis, providing a convenient way to engage with the data for both researchers and medical professionals. Result We present the MeDaX pipeline, a tool that takes FHIR-formatted clinical data as input, maps it to a graph, optimizes its structure, provides options for semantically enriching it and results in a GDB representation of the data. Conclusion The resulting GDB supports interactive visual exploration as well as graph-based querying and analysis. By providing a structurally optimised KG, MeDaX simplifies navigation between heterogeneous clinical resources and provides a connected view of the data, while remaining compatible with established FHIR-based infrastructures.