We show how three existing medical knowledge bases: Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), Standardized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED) and Current Medical Information and Technology (CMIT) are mapped into a relational data model and stored on an Apollo workstation and an Intelligent Database Machine. Since two of these knowledge bases have been used in the indexing of medical literature and patient records, they can be useful not only as direct views on the organization of medical concepts but also as tools for the retrieval of documents. In order that the concepts from one knowledge base can be connected to those of the other knowledge base, a method has been developed for the semi-automatic merging of MeSH, SNOMED and CMIT. This method takes advantage of the relational model and the synonyms that are given in SNOMED and CMIT, in order to recommend concepts to be merged. An expert interacts with the system to accept or reject the recommendations of the computer. The method would apply equally well to other knowledge bases and is particularly well-suited for knowledge bases that contain tens of thousands of concepts.

Abstracting and Indexing↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Approaches to the construction of a medical informatics glossary and thesaurus.

In a project concerned with establishing a glossary and thesaurus for the medical informatics domain, various approaches to the task have been investigated. The developers take the view that a glossary should be a coherent system of terms, reflecting a coherent system of concepts that underlies a body of knowledge about a domain. A framework for the conceptual analysis of the concepts/terms underlying the domain has been developed. The emphasis of this framework is on how the concepts relate together. This work has given an important insight into how the practical task of establishing well-structured vocabularies for a field can be better achieved. An eclectic approach to term selection was adopted. Criteria for assessing what constitutes good definitions for concepts in a field were examined. Using all these approaches glossaries, thesauri and domain models of the medical informatics field are being developed. Another aspect of our work of particular interest is the development of attributed definitions from which inheritance patterns can be defined.

Data Collection↗