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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
1   NHS Centre for Coding and Classification, Loughborough, United Kingdom
,
M. O'Neil
1   NHS Centre for Coding and Classification, Loughborough, United Kingdom
,
T. E. Bentley
1   NHS Centre for Coding and Classification, Loughborough, United Kingdom
,
P. J. B. Brown
1   NHS Centre for Coding and Classification, Loughborough, United Kingdom
› Author Affiliations
Further Information

Publication History

Publication Date:
15 February 2018 (online)

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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
 

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