Semantics is the study of the implied meaning of words. Semantics is relevant to the publishing of health care information because physicians and other authors of the medical literature often use different words to say the same thing.

For example, leprosy is also known as Hansen's disease; a neonate is also a newborn; and SLE is a shorthand abbreviation meaning systemic lupus erythematosus.

When Silverchair "taxonomizes" medical content for the sake of consistency, publishers can bring their content to the semantic web, creating new opportunities for connections, repurposing, and monetization.

Today, the imperative for accurate search and retrieval to support clinical decision making is still the primary use of semantics. Semantic tagging eliminates the problems caused by synonyms and abbreviations and also offers improved spell correction and auto-search suggest using the database of tags that have been used for that content. For example, our auto-search suggest knows that a typical searcher of medical content is looking for the radial artery or radial nerve, not radial tires.

But Silverchair is leading the way in developing more high-value uses for semantics:

• Context-based connections: Using semantic tags, related content can be linked based on context, automatically connecting isolated information silos. For example, a patient's electronic health record can be linked to a database of differential diagnoses, or a drug interaction calculator.
  
  

  Linking to related topics generates more page views, increases online resource usage, and deepens site interaction. For advertising-supported products, semantic connections enrich ad targeting and campaign delivery.

• Unified indexing: Taxonomic metadata can serve as an indexing framework for disparate information resources and enable wide-area topical browsing—allowing a product to incorporate textbooks, journal articles, practice guidelines, drug monographs, and RSS content feeds into a single interface.
• Search engine optimization and exposure: Semantic tags are used to expose secured content in subscription sites to public search engines, like Google and Yahoo, without risking protection of high-value copyrighted works. Letting crawlers index the metadata, a publisher can still communicate what the product page is about (e.g., Management of Diabetes Mellitus) without revealing the content to misappropriation by scrapers and hackers.
• Personalized content delivery: Semantic content can be programmatically matched with user preferences to provide personalized product experiences such as targeted email alerts, customized web site pages, and granular RSS content feeds.
• Repurposing content: "smart" (tagged) content can be mixed and matched with other content—whether intramural or extramural—to create new resources and views. Thus multiple book chapters could be filtered and "mashed up" to create a quick reference view of a topic, for example.
• Workflow integration: By definition, semantic content is designed to be interpreted by machines and can seamlessly integrate into workflow applications such as clinical decision support systems, EMRs, triage, and patient management—helping publishers develop new distribution and revenue channels.

What makes Silverchair semantics happen?

• Expert semantic tagging services
• A licensable medical taxonomy supported by a database of synonyms: TOTEM
• A production tool for applying semantic tags to XML content at granular structural levels: TagMaster
• A content retrieval platform and search engine tuned to semantics: Silverchair Content Manager
• A suite of semantic XML web services that can be seamlessly integrated with existing platforms