Medical language is a reduced subset of ordinary language, but
also parts of the vocabulary of phrases are more precisely defined
than when they are in general use, and some of them are simply
not in general use.
However it is (in my case and place) English, and should not be
replaced by a sequence of compositional codes.
A vocabluary of phrases supplied so as to make them easy to
integrate into the notes, and with a link to an agreed meaning or a
note of the range of meanings assigned to them, would be useful
and can also serve as an educational tool.
Our Read code was the former, to some extent, but the
organisation charged with developing it declined to add the latter.
Later, it declined, which is one reason we are getting SNOMED
with the (slightly more than) token merger of Read into it.
What does the panel think about ontologies for pharmaceutical
and other prescribable items?
There are two projects in the UK:-
a national project to develop the
UK Standard Clinical Products Reference Source,
bringing together all existing initiatives associated with the coding
of drugs etc.
http://www.nhsia.nhs.uk/ukcprs/default.asp
Prodigy Drug Ontology http://www.schin.ncl.ac.uk/index.asp
Neither is Libre, historically the UK has done good stuff it wants
implemented and failed to make it gratuit either, but that might
change.
--
Adrian Midgley
Exeter
http://www.swis.net/midgley/
