THE UNIFIED-MEDICAL-LANGUAGE-SYSTEM - TOWARD A COLLABORATIVE APPROACHFOR SOLVING TERMINOLOGIC PROBLEMS

The approach taken by the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS), in w hich disparate terminology systems are integrated, has allowed constru ction of an electronic thesaurus (the Metathesaurus) that avoids impos ing any restrictions upon the content, structure, or semantics of the source terminologies. As such, the UMLS has served as a unifying parad igm by providing appropriate Links among equivalent entities that are used in different contexts or for different purposes. It accordingly p rovides a vehicle through which possibly orthogonal semantic models ca n co-exist within a single framework. This framework provides a model for the collaborative evolution of biomedical terminology and allows a synergistic relationship between the UMLS and its source terminology systems.