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.”