Table 4
Relative Importance of Terminology Attributes to an Interface Terminology and to a Clinical Terminology in General
| Terminology Attribute | Clinical Terminology | Interface Terminology |
| Statement of purpose, scope, and comprehensiveness | √ | √ |
| Complete coverage of domain-specific content | √ | √ |
| Use of concepts rather than terms, phrase, and words (concept orientation) | √ | |
| Concepts do not change with time, view, or use (concept consistency*) | √ | √ |
| Concepts must evolve with change in knowledge | √ | √ |
| Concepts identified through nonsense identifiers (context-free identifier) | √ | √ |
| Representation of concept context consistently from multiple hierarchies | √ | |
| Concepts have single, explicit formal definitions | √ | √ |
| Support for multiple levels of concept detail | √ | √ |
| Methods, or absence of, to identify duplication, ambiguity, and synonymy | √ | |
| Synonyms uniquely identified and appropriately mapped to relevant concepts | √ | √ |
| Support for compositionality to create concepts at multiple levels of detail | √ | √ |
| Language independence | √ | |
| Integration with other terminologies | √ | |
| Mapping to administrative terminologies | √ | |
| Complete coverage by domain-specific terms and synonyms | √ | |
| Presence of assertional knowledge | √ | |
| Presence of optimal compositional balance | √ |
-
↵* Includes the concepts “multiple consistent views” and “concept permanence.”
