On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 23:01, Thomas Beale wrote: > Right now I really think people need to understand that there is still a > lot of intellectual work ot go in this area, and that finalising > licencing situations will not particularly change things.
And theoretical health informaticists need to understand that the absence of a widely available termonology/classification is badly hurting real-life efforts to improve and protect health, right now. I don't particularly like SNOMED CT - its bulky and inelegant (although fairly comprehensive), and as Thomas points out, uses way too much pre-coordination. But from where I sit, as a practicing epidemiologist who works with practicing clinicians, we need a terminology now. As I said, SNOMED CT seems to be the best bet, at least for English-speaking countries, and the license costs at the national level - US$32 million for the whole US for 5 years, presumably rather less for, say, all of Australia - are not unsustainable, and at least SNOMED is essentially a non-profit organisation, not a rapacious multinational corporation. But efforts on open terminologies, both niche and global, should definitely continue. Hopefully SNOMED CT can then be replaced in a decade or so with a free, global alternative. -- Tim C PGP/GnuPG Key 1024D/EAF993D0 available from keyservers everywhere or at http://members.optushome.com.au/tchur/pubkey.asc Key fingerprint = 8C22 BF76 33BA B3B5 1D5B EB37 7891 46A9 EAF9 93D0 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: <http://lists.openehr.org/mailman/private/openehr-technical_lists.openehr.org/attachments/20030927/84b11c58/attachment.asc>
