A descriptive semantic formalism for medicine

Author

Goble, C.A. ; Glowinski, AJ ; Nowlan, WA ; Rector, A.L.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Manchester Univ., UK

fYear

1993

fDate

19-23 Apr 1993

Firstpage

624

Lastpage

631

Abstract

It is argued that current clinical information systems incorporate oversimplistic, prescriptive data models that are not faithful to clinicians´ observations. A non-prescriptive descriptive semantic formalism, Structured Meta Knowledge (SMK), which unifies a terminological knowledge base with controlled assertional capabilities with the medical record and supports the semantic control necessitated by such an approach, is proposed. The three-layer model of categories, individuals, and occurrences described is more appropriate to medical applications than the two layers of classes and instances. The application of SMK in predictive data entry is considered

Keywords

data structures; database management systems; knowledge representation; medical administrative data processing; Structured Meta Knowledge; clinical information systems; controlled assertional capabilities; data models; descriptive semantic formalism; medical record; medicine; predictive data entry; terminological knowledge base; three-layer model; Biomedical equipment; Computer science; Data models; Diabetes; Eyes; Geriatrics; Internet; Medical control systems; Medical services; Workstations;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Data Engineering, 1993. Proceedings. Ninth International Conference on

Conference_Location

Vienna

Print_ISBN

0-8186-3570-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICDE.1993.344017

Filename

344017