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Term |
Definition |
Examples |
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Coded data |
Discrete data that is stored with an associated
code that would allow all instances of that data to be aggregated
together. Data stored with ICD-9 code would be an example of coded data. |
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Concept |
A coded entity that has unique semantics. Concepts
can have many different terms but all terms have the same
meaning. |
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Default term |
The term associated with a concept that for
a specific usage has been deemed the most desired term. Default
terms must be clear and unambiguous. Often due to the need to be
clear, default terms may not be the preferred term for a
specific context. SNOMED refers to the default term as the fully
specified name. |
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Description |
See term |
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Description Logic |
One way to represent the relationships between
items in a semantic network. |
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Dictionary |
A collection of terms with associated definitions.
Entries for terms may include synonyms or synonyms will have separate
entries and point back to the preferred term. |
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Domain |
See semantic type |
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Fully specified name |
See default
term |
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Granularity |
In this context is the level of specificity or
generalness of a concept. A more specific term is more granular, i.e.,
has a fine granularity; a more general term is less granular, i.e., has
a coarse granularity |
Mitral regurgitation is more granular than
mitral valve disorder. |
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Keyword |
A single word or multi-word entity used by indexing
or search algorithms to point users to relevant content or terms.
Keywords may include misspellings. |
Keywords for diabetes mellitus
diabetes diabetic diabetis diabeties diabetics
mellitus dibetes diabets diabettes diabities dabetes diabeetes diabetees
diabetese diabitis diebetes daiabetes daibetes diabaetes diabeates
diabeats diabebetes diabedes diabestees diabetas mellitis melites
melitus diabetesii diabetice diabetus diabietes diabites diabitest
diabtes diabtetes diaetes diasbetes dibeetes dibeties dieabetes
dieabitis diebeties diubetes duabetes diiabetes iabetes dpiabetes DM
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Lexical variants |
Terms that point to the same
concept that only defer by word order or morphology, i.e., different
forms of the same word |
Lexical variants for malignant neoplasm of the
breast
breast malignant neoplasm
malignant neoplasm, breast
neoplasm, breast, malignant
malignant neoplasm of breast |
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Lexicon |
This term is often used synonymously with
terminology or vocabulary. Linguists tend to think of the lexicon to be
the set of words the make up a natural language with associated
information about their use through syntax and grammar. Due to the
ambiguous nature of this term, we prefer to use terminology when
referring to the collections of concepts and terms. |
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Phrase |
See term |
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Preferred term |
This is the term associated with a concept
is the preferred for a specific application or use context. For example,
a physician may prefer to see “myocardial infarction” where as
consumer would prefer “heart attack.” |
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Reference terminology |
A collection of concepts and relationships between
them. SNOMED CT is an example of a reference terminology |
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Semantic network |
See reference terminology |
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Semantic type |
An attribute of a concept that classifies the
concept into a broad category. Semantic types can have different levels
of granularity and can be organized in a semantic network. |
Diabetes mellitus may have the semantic type
of “DISEASE” whereas CT scan of the abdomen might have the
semantic type of “PROCEDURE” or “IMAGING PROCEDURE.” |
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SNOMED-CT |
SNOMED Clinical Terms. A very large reference
terminology developed and maintained by the College of American
Pathologists (CAP). Contains hundreds of thousands of concepts, nearly a
million descriptions (terms), and millions of relationships between the
concepts. Currently the US government has a site license with CAP and
provides SNOMED (through the UMLS) free-of-charge to individuals and
organizations involved with healthcare within United States |
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Structured data |
Data that is stored discretely in a database or is
tagged in a format (such as XML) that allows computer systems to
reliably extract the data. Structured data is not the same as coded
data. For example, the term "diabetes mellitus" can be stored in a
database as an item on a patient’s problem list, but it may or may not
have an associated code. It may simply be free text. It is structured,
but not coded. |
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Synonym |
An alternative term for a concept. In strict
terminology sense, a term that is a synonym means exactly the same as
the other terms mapped to the concepts. The term “synonym” is often used
more loosely but non-terminology types and might refer to narrower than
or broader than concepts or even related terms. |
A synonym for “myocardial infarction” is “heart
attack.” |
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Term |
A string that is mapped to a concept. A concept can
be associated with multiple terms. A term can also be associated with
multiple concepts. SNOMED uses description to describe this entity. |
Concept with multiple terms
Concept: mitral regurgitation
Terms:
mitral regurgitation
mitral valve regurgitation
mitral insufficiency
MI
valvular insufficiency of the mitral valve
Term mapped to multiple concepts
Term: MI
Concepts:
myocardial infarction
mitral insufficiency |
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Terminological ontology |
See reference terminology |
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Terminology |
A collection of terms and concepts |
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Thesaurus |
A collection of terms and relationships between
them. Generally a thesaurus uses looser rules with regard to synonymy.
The UMLS metathesaurus is a great example in healthcare of a large
compendium of terms from a variety of terminology sources that are
grouped together conceptually. |
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UMLS Metathesaurus |
Unified Medical Language System project was begun
in 1985 at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) as an effort to
address the terminology problem in healthcare. A key product of this
effort, the Metathesaurus is a very large, multi-purpose, and
multi-lingual vocabulary database that contains information about
biomedical and health related concepts, their various names, and the
relationships among them. |
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User-interface Terminology |
That component of a terminology that users interact
with. As opposed to the reference portion of a terminology
(relationships between concepts, semantic types), the user-interface
portion generally refers to the many terms associated with a concept as
well as a word dictionary that facilitates searching. |
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Vocabulary |
Often used interchangeably with terminology |
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Word |
A collection of
characters bounded by white space
or non-alphanumeric characters. A word can also be a term. |
Heart
Cardiac
Alzheimer
Post
B12 |