HealthDCAT-AP Release 8 – Changelog

This page documents all changes introduced in Release 8 of HealthDCAT-AP, including new model elements, controlled vocabulary updates and migrations to production, documentation improvements, the new specification URL, licensing information, and resolved community issues.

1. New Model Elements

1.1 Health Data Access Body Coordinator New

A new optional HealthDCAT-AP property healthdcatap:hdabCoordinator has been introduced in dcat:Dataset to identify the Coordinating HDAB for the relevant data access process, where such a role has been formally designated.

Property

healthdcatap:hdabCoordinator

Class

dcat:Dataset

Cardinality

0..1 (Optional)

Range

foaf:Agent

Description

The Health Data Access Body acting as coordinator for the relevant data access process.

Usage note

This property should be used where a coordinating HDAB has been designated. It should identify the organisation acting in this coordinating role. Where no coordinator has been designated or where the role is not applicable, the property may be omitted.

1.2 Table Group Title New

A new mandatory property dct:title has been added to the csvw:TableGroup class to support a human-readable title for the group of tables describing dataset variables.

Property

dct:title

Class

csvw:TableGroup

Cardinality

1..n (Mandatory)

Range

rdfs:Literal

Description

Table Group title.

Usage note

Used to provide a human-readable title for the Table Group. Can appear in multiple languages.

2. Documentation Improvements

2.1 Property Ordering in Class Tables Updated

To improve readability and navigation, the HealthDCAT-AP technical specification now lists properties in ascending alphabetical order by name.

3. Controlled Vocabulary Updates

3.1 Migration from Acceptance to Production Updated

All DG SANTE controlled vocabulary base URLs have been migrated from the Acceptance environment to the Production environment.

3.2 Technical Standard and Coding System Vocabularies Review Updated

The Technical Standard (dct:conformsTo) and Coding System (healthdcatap:hasCodingSystem) controlled vocabularies have been reviewed and extended based on feedback from the C1 group and the Community of Practice (CoP SG2).

A new Type of standard column has been added to the Technical standard (dct:conformsTo) controlled vocabulary, structured as a tree to classify standards by their nature. Available at: https://hdeu-dcat.data.health.europa.eu/resource/authority/standard.

The Coding System controlled vocabulary has been extended with additional entries proposed by CoP SG2: EMDN, DICOM-CT, EMA-SPOR, NCIT, HPO, ORDO, OHDSI-VOCAB, NPU and WHODRUG.

Two placeholder categories have also been introduced for national terminologies, ICD-10-NAT (National ICD-10 variants) and PROC-CODES-NAT (National procedure codes), pending further CoP SG2 feedback and the future Article 15 implementing act.

4. Specification Migration Updated

The HealthDCAT-AP specifications have been migrated to a new stable URL under the HealthData@EU production environment:

https://data.health.europa.eu/healthdcat-ap/latest

Bookmarking or linking to this URL ensures users always land on the current release without needing to update their links between versions.

5. Licence New

Licence information has been added to the HealthDCAT-AP repository on code.europa.eu.

The licence is applicable to all artefacts of the HealthDCAT-AP code.europa.eu repository (specification, examples, SHACL shapes, controlled vocabularies references, etc.).

6. Resolved Community Issues

The following issues reported on the Code Europa issue tracker have been resolved in this release.