Thomas, I disagree.
I disagree because in essence both are the same. It is in the richness versus reduced richness that there is a difference. And that difference is not major. As a physician I believe in free text and narrative. Healthcare is exchange of information between responsible humans in the first place and secondly between databases. And free text in a rich narrative structure is the way in which humans can express them selves in a rich way as complete and accurate as they can. The richer the structure of the free text or narrative the better the information can be expressed in a structured way. The richer the text is structured using concepts from a source the better information can be expressed in an analysable form. A rich ontology is better than a restricted code set. Gerard On 2002-12-18 17:01, "Thomas Beale" <thomas at deepthought.com.au> wrote: > > > Philippe AMELINE wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> Since I missed the starting point of this thread, I may un-properly >> answer ; however I can say from the work we are doing that there is a >> great difference between a system based on an ontology and a system >> based on free text annotated by a coding system. >> >> The fist one allows structured description (knowledge management >> field) while the other remains in the field of classification (data >> management : text index keeping and epidemiology). > > And I have to agree 100%. But I doubt if Gerard really disagrees with this. > > - thomas > > > > - > If you have any questions about using this list, > please send a message to d.lloyd at openehr.org -- <private> -- Gerard Freriks, arts Huigsloterdijk 378 2158 LR Buitenkaag The Netherlands +31 252 544896 +31 654 792800 - If you have any questions about using this list, please send a message to d.lloyd at openehr.org