----- Original Message ----- From: "Bert Verhees" <[email protected]> To: <openehr-technical at openehr.org> Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2006 11:32 PM Subject: dictionary
> Hi, > > I have a question, maybe a stupid question, don't hesitate to tell me (I > can handle that), as long as you give the answer with it. > > Today I had the opportunity to have a good look at HealthOne, a GEHR > system, many on this list will know it. > > One thing looked smart to me. > They have a kind of Dictionary with 6000 words, (also these words are > possibly related to each other, that makes it an extra strong feature). > The relationship between the words is not hard coded and is not stored in > medical-records, so if the relationship changes, nothing breaks, even if a > word from the dictionary will be deleted (which will not easily happen), > nothing breaks. > > The advantage is that always the same word is used when storing something, > f.e. "Weight" > > Maybe OpenEhr has such a feature also. or does it depend on archetypes to > force the same semantics. This seems dangerous to me, because when > exchanging medical information, in an other Archetype weight can be > defined as another word, a synonym, f.e. "Bodyweight" > > If one has an archetype which calculates the BMI (body mass index), it > could not work on another OpenEhr system that has used (some time) another > archetype to store the "Weight". > > Or am I completetely misunderstanding the issue, and is it in fact a > non-issue. > > Please explain to me. > > Thanks in advance > > Kind regards > Bert Verhees > Hi Bert, I don't think this is a big issue. The important thing in openEHR archetypes is the structure of them. As long as there is a structure that is equal for both "Weight" and "Bodyweight", it shouldn't be a problem. The allowed information model structures in archetypes is what really matters and the terms can always be bound to external terminologies to create a mutual understanding. Regards, Mattias Forss
