What model defines concepts and relationships in a specific domain within health informatics?

The concept of an ontology is crucial in health informatics because it provides a structured representation of knowledge within a specific domain, capturing the various concepts and the relationships between them. By using ontology, professionals can determine how different health-related concepts, such as diseases, treatments, and patient data, are interconnected. This facilitates better data interoperability, enabling various systems to understand and share complex health information more effectively.

Ontologies also help in standardizing terminology, reducing ambiguity, and improving data analysis across diverse health informatics applications. This modeling is essential for applications like electronic health records, clinical decision support systems, and research databases.

In contrast, while frameworks and schemas also provide structure, they don't focus specifically on defining relationships between concepts in the same robust and semantic way that ontologies do. Additionally, Key Performance Indicators are metrics used to evaluate the success of an organization or activity rather than a model for defining concepts and relationships.