Semantic Data New York 2025

The position up to now:

For a long time much of HealthStream’s’ taxonomy has remained static, hard coded into production environments that couldn’t be updated without development efforts. As a result, changes have not been made in years due to competing priorities.  As part of its evolution into a platform solution HealthStream is beginning to offer API services for taxonomy. 

The challenge now faced:

While this gives the taxonomy team more ownership of the taxonomies, it also creates the need for formal governance. As multiple products depend on these taxonomies—often tied to individual user experiences, updates must be handled with care. 

Our response:

New policies are being developed for areas that previously lacked them, and a clear, consistent communication and scheduling process is being established to guide future changes.

We are taking advantage of the move to API distribution, treating it as a chance to implement significant improvements. 

• Enhanced taxonomies using SKOS formatting and SPARQL queries are enabling richer, more flexible data feeds than legacy relational databases allowed. 
• A new mapping structure is being introduced to support downstream product migrations.

The talk will cover the strategies adopted and the lessons learned so far as we create a taxonomy governance from scratch, balancing:

• Agility with control.
• Innovation with stability

Insights into how to: 

• Design policies
• Create change management protocols
• Collaborate across teams to ensure taxonomy changes are both sustainable and scalable.