Ontology-based healthcare context information model to implement ubiquitous environment

To establish real u-healthcare environments, it is necessary to receive the context information obtained from various platforms at the proper time in portable devices which operate using both wired and wireless communication. Moreover, a knowledge model is required that reflects the information and characteristics needed for such services while remaining appropriate for medical reference. This paper develops an ontology-based healthcare context information model to implement a ubiquitous environment. Contextual information will be extracted and classified to implement the healthcare services using the context information model. The healthcare context information model can be defined using the ontology, and a common healthcare model will be developed by considering medical references and service environments. Application and healthcare service developers can use the sensed information in various environments by authoring device- and space-specific ontologies based on this common ontology. In addition, this paper designs a personalized u-healthcare service system. The validity of the model used in this study is evaluated for the food and exercise recommendation in u-healthcare services.