Communication among medical information systems: principles for elaborating definitions

Abstract

The formulation of definitions for medical terms to be applied in ontology-based information systems is a fundamental activity for supporting continuing care, in cases in which a patient moves among different medical units. However, the practice of creating good definitions is not a trivial task, and the literature does not provide clear methodologies. This article aims to present a method to establish principles for systematizing the process of creating standardized definitions, which can be capable to provide the expected communication between the medical information systems and, therefore, to foster better services for citizens. The creation and testing of such method was conducted in the field of leukemias in the scope of the Blood Ontology project. The results show that definitions of biomedical entities are defined in a variety of criteria, which do not always meet the ontological representation requirements for adequate communication between medical information systems. Some well-known issues already identified are the identification of essential features of an entity, in addition to involve circularity, intangibility as well as the complexity in diagnosing manifold diseases such leukemias. We hope this experience can contribute to improvements in research projects in which Information Science supports Medicine and Healthcare with the aim of providing a better service to the citizen.