Hands-On Healthcare Data

Chapter 3. Standardized Vocabularies in Healthcare

In this chapter, we cover standardized vocabularies, controlled vocabularies, terminologies, and ontologies. Some use these terms quite interchangeably, while others adhere to fairly precise definitions that may be confusing at first. We will start with a short introduction to these ideas, how they are similar, where they overlap, and also how they differ. You will see me use the term terminology as a nebulous reference to a particular source of content that spans the spectrum of vocabulary to ontology. For example, International Classification of Diseases, Revision 10 (ICD-10), ICD-9, and Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine—Clinical Terms (SNOMED-CT) would all be referred to as terminologies. Some are simply a collection of terms and definitions (e.g., vocabularies), while others capture hierarchies or even richer relationships (e.g., ontologies).

In addition to the content, there are also associated tools and processes that build on top of the semantic web. For example, many ontologies come in Web Ontology Language (OWL) and build on top of Resource Description Framework (RDF). These technologies are not specific to healthcare or medicine, but this is one area where we have seen a larger adoption of these technologies.

If there is a single technical chapter in this book that differentiates it from books about data (especially in other industries), it would be this one. Many of the challenges when working with healthcare data ...