Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39914801›Full record

ArticleJMIR medical informatics2025

An Ontology for Digital Medicine Outcomes: Development of the Digital Medicine Outcomes Value Set (DOVeS).

Benjamin Rosner, Matthew Horridge, Guillen Austria, Tiffany Lee, Andrew Auerbach

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in JMIR medical informatics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Benjamin RosnerDivision of Clinical Informatics and Digital Transformation, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.ORCID 0000-0003-3609-6481
Matthew HorridgeStanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States.ORCID 0000-0001-8921-6593
Guillen AustriaSchool of Public Health, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States.ORCID 0009-0002-5443-1765
Tiffany LeeDivision of Hospital Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.ORCID 0009-0000-6618-164X
Andrew AuerbachDivision of Hospital Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.ORCID 0000-0001-8440-0527

Funding

FDA HHS U01 FD005978
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundOver the last 10-15 years, US health care and the practice of medicine itself have been transformed by a proliferation of digital medicine and digital therapeutic products (collectively, digital health tools [DHTs]). While a number of DHT classifications have been proposed to help organize these tools for discovery, retrieval, and comparison by health care organizations seeking to potentially implement them, none have specifically addressed that organizations considering their implementation approach the DHT discovery process with one or more specific outcomes in mind. An outcomes-based DHT ontology could therefore be valuable not only for health systems seeking to evaluate tools that influence certain outcomes, but also for regulators and vendors seeking to ascertain potential substantial equivalence to predicate devices.

objectiveThis study aimed to develop, with inputs from industry, health care providers, payers, regulatory bodies, and patients through the Accelerated Digital Clinical Ecosystem (ADviCE) consortium, an ontology specific to DHT outcomes, the Digital medicine Outcomes Value Set (DOVeS), and to make this ontology publicly available and free to use.

methodsFrom a starting point of a 4-generation-deep hierarchical taxonomy developed by ADviCE, we developed DOVeS using the Web Ontology Language through the open-source ontology editor Protégé, and data from 185 vendors who had submitted structured product information to ADviCE. We used a custom, decentralized, collaborative ontology engineering methodology, and were guided by Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry principles. We incorporated the Mondo Disease Ontology (MONDO) and the Ontology of Adverse Events. After development, DOVeS was field-tested between December 2022 and May 2023 with 40 additional independent vendors previously unfamiliar with ADviCE or DOVeS. As a proof of concept, we subsequently developed a prototype DHT Application Finder leveraging DOVeS to enable a user to query for DHT products based on specific outcomes of interest.

resultsIn its current state, DOVeS contains 42,320 and 9481 native axioms and distinct classes, respectively. These numbers are enhanced when taking into account the axioms and classes contributed by MONDO and the Ontology of Adverse Events.

conclusionsDOVeS is publicly available on BioPortal and GitHub, and has a Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA that is intended to encourage stakeholders to modify, adapt, build upon, and distribute it. While no ontology is complete, DOVeS will benefit from a strong and engaged user base to help it grow and evolve in a way that best serves DHT stakeholders and the patients they serve.

Indexed as

Biological OntologiesOutcome Assessment, Health CareTelemedicineHumansdevelopmentDHTdigital healthdigital health tooldigital medicinedigital medicine outcomes value setdigital therapeuticshealth systemsmedical informaticsontologyprototypeusersvalue set

Identifiers

PMID39914801
PMCPMC11843056

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.