Document Detail


From concepts to clinical reality: an essay on the benchmarking of biomedical terminologies.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  16293444     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
It is only by fixing on agreed meanings of terms in biomedical terminologies that we will be in a position to achieve that accumulation and integration of knowledge that is indispensable to progress at the frontiers of biomedicine. Standardly, the goal of fixing meanings is seen as being realized through the alignment of terms on what are called 'concepts.' Part I addresses three versions of the concept-based approach--by Cimino, by Wüster, and by Campbell and associates--and surveys some of the problems to which they give rise, all of which have to do with a failure to anchor the terms in terminologies to corresponding referents in reality. Part II outlines a new, realist solution to this anchorage problem, which sees terminology construction as being motivated by the goal of alignment not on concepts but on the universals (kinds, types) in reality and thereby also on the corresponding instances (individuals, tokens). We outline the realist approach and show how on its basis we can provide a benchmark of correctness for terminologies which will at the same time allow a new type of integration of terminologies and electronic health records. We conclude by outlining ways in which the framework thus defined might be exploited for purposes of diagnostic decision-support.
Authors:
Barry Smith
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't     Date:  2005-11-02
Journal Detail:
Title:  Journal of biomedical informatics     Volume:  39     ISSN:  1532-0480     ISO Abbreviation:  J Biomed Inform     Publication Date:  2006 Jun 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2006-05-15     Completed Date:  2006-07-17     Revised Date:  2007-11-15    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  100970413     Medline TA:  J Biomed Inform     Country:  United States    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  288-98     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and National Center for Biomedical Ontology, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA. phismith@buffalo.edu
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Animals
Benchmarking
Biology / methods
Biomedical Technology / methods*
Computational Biology / methods*
Humans
Medical Informatics Computing
Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine
Terminology as Topic*
Vocabulary, Controlled
Comments/Corrections
Comment In:
J Biomed Inform. 2006 Jun;39(3):299-306   [PMID:  16386470 ]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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