1、Designation:E 2087 00An American National StandardStandard Specification forQuality Indicators for Controlled Health Vocabularies1This standard is issued under the fixed designation E 2087;the number immediately following the designation indicates the year oforiginal adoption or,in the case of revis
2、ion,the year of last revision.A number in parentheses indicates the year of last reapproval.Asuperscript epsilon(e)indicates an editorial change since the last revision or reapproval.INTRODUCTIONIn 1839,William Farr stated in his First Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Births,Deaths,and Marr
3、iages in England,“The nomenclature is of as much importance in this department of inquiry,as weights and measures in the physical sciences,and should be settled without delay.”Since that timethis theme has been heard resounding from an in increasingly large group of scientists(see AppendixX1).Today,
4、the need for controlled vocabularies to support health record systems has been widelyrecognized(see Specification E 1238,Guide E 1239,Guide E 1384,Specification E 1633,and EN12017).Controlled vocabularies provide systems with the means to aggregate data.This aggregationof data can be done at multipl
5、e levels of granularity and therefore can enhance the clinical retrievalof a problem oriented record,data pertaining to a classification for billing purposes,or outcomes datafor a given population.Maintenance of large-scale vocabularies has become a burdensome problemas the size of term sets has esc
6、alated(IS 15188).Without a well-structured backbone,large-scalevocabularies cannot scale to provide the level of interoperability required by todays complexelectronic health record applications.The solution rests with standards(1).2Over the past ten or more years,Medical Informaticsresearchers have
7、been studying controlled vocabulary issues directly.They have examined thestructure and content of existing vocabularies to determine why they seem unsuitable for particularneeds,and they have proposed solutions.In some cases,proposed solutions have been carried forwardinto practice and new experien
8、ce has been gained(2).As we prepare to enter the twenty-first century,it seems appropriate to pause to reflect on this experience,and publish a standard set of goals for thedevelopment of comparable,reusable,multipurpose,and maintainable controlled health vocabularies(IS 12200,IS 12620)(3).This spec
9、ification represents the initial input taken from the ANSI-HISB Framework Paper byChute,et al(4),the Desiderata from Cimino(3),the ToMeLo Architecture and Terminology Paper byRossi-Mori and Zanstra,and the Compositionality Paper by Elkin,et al(5).Other useful referencesinclude,“GALEN Generalized Arc
10、hitecture for Language,Encyclopedias and Nomenclatures inMedicine:Univ.of Manchester”(6,7)and“Unified Medical Language System(UMLS)KnowledgeSources”(8).1.Scope1.1 This specification covers the documentation of theprincipal notions necessary and sufficient to assign value to acontrolled health vocabu
11、lary.This specification will serve as aguide for governments,funding agencies,terminology devel-opers,terminology integration organizations,and the purchas-ers and users of controlled health terminology systems workingtoward improved terminological development and recognitionof value in a controlled
12、 health vocabulary.It is applicable to allareas of health care about which information is kept or utilized.It is intended to complement and utilize those notions alreadyidentified by other national and international standards bodies.1.2 This specification will provide vocabulary developersand author
13、s with the guidelines needed to construct useful,maintainable controlled health vocabularies.These tenets donot attempt to specify all of the richness that can be incorpo-rated into a health terminology.However this specificationdoes specify the minimal requirements,which,if not adheredto,will ensur
14、e that the vocabulary will have limited general-izability and will be very difficult,if not impossible,tomaintain.This specification will provide terminology develop-ers with a sturdy starting point for the development ofcontrolled health vocabularies.This foundation serves as the1This specification
15、 is under the jurisdiction of ASTM Committee E31 onHealthcare Informatics and is the direct responsibility of Subcommittee E31.01 onControlled Health Vocabularies for Healthcare Informatics.Current edition approved May 10,2000.Published July 2000.2The boldface numbers in parentheses refer to the lis
16、t of references at the end ofthis standard.1Copyright ASTM International,100 Barr Harbor Drive,PO Box C700,West Conshohocken,PA 19428-2959,United States.basis from which vocabulary developers will build robust,large-scale,reliable and maintainable terminologies.1.3 This specification explicitly does not refer to classifica-tions or coding systems(for example,a simple list of pairs ofrubrics and codes)that are not designed to be used clinically.2.Referenced Documents2.1 ASTM Standards:E 1238 Spec