Exploring the Ontology of Surgical Procedures in the Read Thesaurus

C. Price; M. O'Neil; T. E. Bentley; P. J. B. Brown

doi:10.1055/s-0038-1634555

Methods of Information in Medicine, Table of Contents

Methods Inf Med 1998; 37(04/05): 420-425
DOI: 10.1055/s-0038-1634555

Original Article

Schattauer GmbH

Exploring the Ontology of Surgical Procedures in the Read Thesaurus

C. Price

¹NHS Centre for Coding and Classification, Loughborough, United Kingdom

,

M. O'Neil

¹NHS Centre for Coding and Classification, Loughborough, United Kingdom

,

T. E. Bentley

¹NHS Centre for Coding and Classification, Loughborough, United Kingdom

,

P. J. B. Brown

¹NHS Centre for Coding and Classification, Loughborough, United Kingdom

› Author Affiliations

Abstract

The Read Thesaurus is a comprehensive user-led clinical vocabulary developed from earlier, and structurally simpler, versions of the Read Codes, with substantial input from United Kingdom health care professionals. A constituent template table underpins a range of functions, including semantic definition of concepts using object-attribute-value triples. Concept representation for surgical procedures has been investigated by a number of groups and a standard European structure has been proposed. Over 50% ofthe surgical procedures in the Read Thesaurus have been fully characterised using a number of attributes each with a defined concept field. We report progress to date and, based on our large-scale experience, examine the applicability of the European model to a user-defined terminology.

Keywords

Clinical Vocabulary - Concept Definition - Terminology

Full Text

References

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