Dear Daniel, yes, I said that the grey zone is a relic of the past, It is there and we have to deal with it. But that is not to say that it must stay the same.
To my mind we have to be aware that when dealing with semantics and IT we must stay close to the eons proven way to do things. For eons we have had as semantic ingredients: - a list of words (nouns and verbs) plus modifiers (adverbs, adjectives): dictionary/vocabulary - a syntaxis/grammar - ways to define what makes sense. The list of words/dictionary/vocabulary defined the concepts building block to be used in grammar. Using words and grammar we could produce sentences and express what we had to express. But we could produce sensical and non-sensical combinations of words and grammar in sentences. Therefor we had ways to select and use only the sensical sentences. And these are archetypes and templates. Archetypes and templates -in addition- provide the patterns (types of sentences) that can be used in healthcare to document observations, evaluations, instructions, and actions. We must think very carefully whether it is wise to have two grammars at the same time. Archetypes and templates have on one hand the role of grammar and the pattern used for documenting. What is a compelling reason to combine the role of a code-list with that of grammar in SNOMED? Does SNOMED have a rich enough grammar? As rich as archetypes and templates allow? Does it has a way to deal with patterns? Isn't it a solution for the grey zone problem to accept that from now on we use SNOMED as a code list / vocabulary, that eventually helps us reasoning because of the ontological features? And that archetypes and templates are the grammar and the expression patterns? Coding systems are a fact of life. Archetypes and templates are a fact of life. Both need a natural role. Isn't this suggestion the most practical way to deal with the grey zone in the future? Gerard On Jun 10, 2008, at 9:55 PM, Daniel Karlsson wrote: > I didn't say that the grey zone is a relic of the past but, quite > differently, a fact we need to acknowledge and relate to. The main > reason: terminologies are not just merely dictionaries but make > assumptions of semantics that interact with assumptions of semantics > made in archetypes. Also, in terminological languages, representations > of the semantics may be processed formally. -- <private> -- Gerard Freriks, MD Huigsloterdijk 378 2158 LR Buitenkaag The Netherlands T: +31 252544896 M: +31 620347088 E: gfrer at luna.nl Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin 11 Nov 1755 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.openehr.org/mailman/private/openehr-technical_lists.openehr.org/attachments/20080611/da7e5c9f/attachment.html>
