Adrian,
I am not an ontology or linguistics expert but hopefully something can
be learned from exposing my ignorance.
On Wed, 4 Jul 2001, Dr Adrian Midgley wrote:
> Medical language is a reduced subset of ordinary language,
It seems to me that while medical language is a "subset" of ordinary
language, it would be a mistake to view it as a "finite set". The
significant implication is whether any ontology, even a "reduced subset",
can be fully or adequately enumerated?
> but
> also parts of the vocabulary of phrases are more precisely defined
I agree. At the same time, any difference in definition or usage
shifts/modifies the meaning of the term. Thus, medical and non-medical
ontologies are related but distinct.
> than when they are in general use, and some of them are simply
> not in general use.
Right. There are overlaps between the "general" and the "medical"
ontologies. However, even the boundary between the two are not stationary
over time. Some terms may move from medical to general use or from general
to medical use.
> However it is (in my case and place) English, and should not be
> replaced by a sequence of compositional codes.
I am not sure what you mean by this. My understanding is that
compositional codes serve as a "read-only" language that is more resistant
to undermining/redefinition by human usage. These codes are mapped to
human languages such as medical English for human consumption.
The idea is to separate the human interface/display technology (English,
Hebrew, etc) from the underlying logic (code), if you will.
> A vocabluary of phrases supplied so as to make them easy to
> integrate into the notes, and with a link to an agreed meaning or a
> note of the range of meanings assigned to them, would be useful
> and can also serve as an educational tool.
The "link" part sounds like a dictionary. Is that what you mean?
> Our Read code was the former, to some extent, but the
> organisation charged with developing it declined to add the latter.
I am sure they have good reasons to not want to provide/mandate a
dictionary.
> Later, it declined, which is one reason we are getting SNOMED
> with the (slightly more than) token merger of Read into it.
Maybe defining the terms would duplicate work already done by SNOMED?
> What does the panel think about ontologies for pharmaceutical
> and other prescribable items?
I think it should be much easier than building an ontology for psychiatry.
> There are two projects in the UK:-
...
> Neither is Libre, historically the UK has done good stuff it wants
> implemented and failed to make it gratuit either, but that might
> change.
If there are enough people willing to build a free version, then things
will change. What is wrong with paying for a useful
ontology/termset/dictionary, other than preferring a free meal? :-)
Best regards,
Andrew
---
Andrew P. Ho, M.D.
OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes
TxOutcome.Org (hosting OIO Library #1)
Assistant Clinical Professor
Department of Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
University of California, Los Angeles
