The Swiss Personalized Health Network Metadata Catalog: Platform for Health Data Discovery and Exploration Based on Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable Principles.

BACKGROUND

The Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN) facilitates the interoperability and secure sharing of health-related data for research in Switzerland, in line with the findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) principles. Since medical datasets can be highly sensitive, access is often governed by complex legal and regulatory requirements. Enabling researchers to discover, understand, and evaluate datasets through rich, well-structured metadata is therefore essential to support informed decisions about data suitability and reuse.

OBJECTIVE

This study describes the design and functionality of the SPHN Metadata Catalog and its role in supporting the discovery, exploration, and reuse assessment of health-related datasets.

METHODS

The SPHN Metadata Catalog is a FAIR Data Point-compliant infrastructure that provides rich, structured metadata in both human and machine-readable form. Dataset descriptions are based on the HealthDCAT (Health Data Catalog Vocabulary) Application Profile, ensuring a standardized representation of health data catalogs. Beyond the descriptive metadata typically offered by other catalogs, the SPHN Metadata Catalog includes extensive dataset-level statistics expressed using the Vocabulary of Interlinked Datasets. An interactive visualization component further enables users to explore graph-based schemas and datasets, including entities, attributes, relationships, and their relative abundances.

RESULTS

The SPHN Metadata Catalog enables users to explore the semantic structure of graph schemas and statistics of datasets prior to requesting access. Researchers can examine data structures, relationships, attributes, and the abundances of individual data elements. This functionality supports feasibility assessments and informed evaluations of dataset suitability and reuse conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

By combining HealthDCAT Application Profile-based descriptions with rich statistical metadata and interactive exploration capabilities, the SPHN Metadata Catalog enhances dataset discoverability and supports FAIR-compliant data reuse. As a key component of Switzerland's health data research infrastructure, the SPHN Metadata Catalog provides a foundation for future interoperability initiatives, including potential alignment with emerging frameworks such as the European Health Data Space.