RE: Follow up: Clinical Observations Interoperability Telcon @ Tue Oct 30

We definitely have differences in language.
Let's try to synchronize.

> A domain model is something that corresponds to something in the
> world. So when we use a term from a domain model ontology such as
> "liver", we mean livers.

[VK] Actually, this is closer to what I would describe an information model,
just that it would also contain "epistemological" constructs in addition to
ontological ones.

> An information model describes a data structure. Here we would talk
> about things like records with fields and the values that fields can
> have.

[VK] This is where we differ. I would call the above a data model.
So Detailed Clinical Models are Information Models
and SDTM models are more of a data model. 
We will need to see if this is indeed an issue but I guess one would have to
abstract an information model out of a data model (assuming you buy into the
terminology above)

> Often this distinction is blurred, which lands up generating
> confusion. Further blurring things is that there is something in
> between - Observations, namely things that doctors say that may or
> may not be true (because doctors don't have complete information).

[VK] Observations belongs in the Information model. Contains both
epistemological and ontological constructs. A specific implementation of an
Observation model in terms of data structures, e.g., relational tables,
java classes, etc. are is a data model.

> The practice of linking a field or a field value to a term from a
> domain model, as SDTM does and as Tom described, is an attempt to
> link the two. To what extent that is effective, I don't know. I
> suspect that it goes some, but not all the way, towards addressing
> Kersten's concerns.

[VK] In general this is the approach followed by Detailed Clinical Models
as well and seems to work for now, but may break later. Would have preferred
a clean separation between the information model and data model layers with
appropriate declarative mappings defined between the two.

> I don't know if you've had a look at a short paper I was a coauthor
> on [1]. In it we distinguish between the record level, the statement
> level, and the domain level. I think that the situation in clinical
> informatics might be similarly partitioned. The domain level
> corresponds to actual things that happen to patients. The statement
> level corresponds to observations, and the record level corresponds
> to information model.

[VK] Would propose that Information Model = Domain Level + Statement Level
        Data Model = Record Level

Interesting side bar discussion for F2F?

---Vipul


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Received on Saturday, 3 November 2007 14:48:04 UTC