Tom, I do not think that structure can be justified if that structure is unlikely to add either value or safety down the line. So in the situation where we are not able to rely on a time as being either a strict point in time or an interval is likely to create semantic problems. Unless you can rely on strict chronological listing it is unhelpful to try to give spurious precision. So my suggestion is that such fuzzy dates should be put into free text only and all dates associated with any entry should only be the ones we can rely on, such as date and time of entry.
What is more precise: "the first of the month, but do not remember which month", "the night it rained" or "the morning that the kids were late for school"? To me there is no point in using anything other than free text for any of these. Julian dates can be very useful, but not all date information fits the simple model and errors are made when we try to force it in. We should always have a time stamp for computer entry, which should be flagged if this is the only Julian-type date information that is available (and must be used with great caution along side free text data). Tim -- Tim Benson Abies Ltd, 24 Carlingford Road, London NW3 1RX, UK +44 (0) 20 7431 6428, tb at abies.co.uk > From: Thomas Beale <thomas at deepthought.com.au> > Organization: Deep Thought Informatics Pty Ltd > Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2002 19:59:43 +1000 > To: Tim Benson <tb at abies.co.uk> > Cc: openehr-technical at openehr.org > Subject: Re: Data Types > > > > Tim Benson wrote: > >> Surely the criterion for any structured data is whether another application >> is expected to use that structured data in a way that (a) adds value and (b) >> is safe. If either (a) or (b) are not true then structure simply adds cost >> and complexity without benefit. >> > Tim, I agree with the premise; but what is your solution in this case? > The structure would only change in a very trivial way i.e. by adding a > flag which means "day_unknown". Are you asking for a use case which > proves that this should exist? I agree - that's what we need. Tim has > provided the simplest of all - if the patient said it, we should record > it. Is it enough - I don't know... > > - thomas beale > > > - If you have any questions about using this list, please send a message to d.lloyd at openehr.org
