ISO 17439:2022

INTERNATIONAL ISO
STANDARD 17439
First edition
2022-03
Health informatics — Development
of terms and definitions for health
informatics glossaries
Informatique de santé — Développement des termes et définitions
pour les glossaires d'informatique de santé
Reference number
© ISO 2022
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ii
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Glossary management processes .3
4.1 Overview . 3
4.2 Term entry . 3
4.3 Term definition . 4
4.4 Context description . 6
4.5 Source . 6
4.6 Usage comment . 6
4.7 Image . 6
4.8 Document(s) in which the term/definition is used . 7
4.9 Status of the definition . 7
4.10 Version . 7
4.11 Version date . 7
4.12 Rationale for change . 7
5 Governance . 8
Bibliography . 9
iii
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out
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electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the
different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of
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on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents).
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expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to
the World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see
www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html.
This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 215, Health informatics.
This first edition cancels and replaces (ISO/TS 17439:2014), which has been technically revised.
The main changes are as follows:
— inclusion of procedures for governance in Clause 5 as these are now more clearly understood and
tested at a high level.
— inclusion of reference to Dublin Core and how this document provides extended functionality to
what is specified in it.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html.
iv
Introduction
General
Health informatics is serviced by multiple Standards Development Organizations, each with their
own need for consistent definitions of the terms they use. The evolution of glossaries across these
organizations has resulted in standards products where, increasingly, terms are defined and/or used
in different ways. This situation leads to a lack of clarity in the use and meaning of health informatics
around the world.
There are many national and international efforts to write and use clear standards to support the
development of electronic health care initiatives. There are many standards and terms defined,
however, finding the relevant standard, recording suggested improvements, and encouraging the use of
standard terms is an ongoing issue to all involved in the development of these documents and in their
use.
The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative has provided and continues to provide an excellent mechanism
for documents, glossary metadata but was not found sufficient to meet the needs for harmonization
between multiple divergent organizations.
This document provides details of the metadata and requirements for inclusion and construction
of quality terms and definitions in health informatics glossaries. In the context of the recognized
requirement for a single international health informatics glossary, the following are the purposes of
this document:
— to collate relevant standards and guidance for the development of quality terms and definitions;
— to provide procedural standards for the introduction and management of terms in health informatics
standards products in order to rationalize the use of these terms;
— to reduce the effort required for standards development to create and decide upon terms and
definitions used in the documents produced by health informatics standards organizations;
— to support the development of international e-health initiatives through a consistent approach to
development and use of terms and definitions.
Quality definitions and specification of additional metadata to explain and clarify terms used includes
the following:
— consistent structure of terms, synonyms, and acronyms to support lookup;
— representation of definitions in a manner that is clear and fulfils the purpose of a definition;
— consistent provision and structure of metadata to explain further, provide examples and links to
standards documents and standards processes to support maintenance of terms and definitions in
an ongoing improvement environment.
The shared online tool of the Joint Initiative Council of Health Informatics Standards Development
Organization's (JIC) that uses these metadata is the Standards Knowledge Management Tool Glossary
(www.skmtglossary.org). The Standards Knowledge Management Tool (SKMT) is an Internet-based
tool designed to assist in finding and managing standards documents, products, terms, and definitions.
Each term and associated definition can be linked back to the document/s within which it is used (even
if that link is simply to an organization's glossary).
v
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 17439:2022(E)
Health informatics — Development of terms and
definitions for health informatics glossaries
1 Scope
This document provides details of the metadata and requirements for quality terms and definitions in
health informatics for inclusion in health informatics glossaries.
This document does not cover specification of terminological content in systems, such as that
represented in terminological resources, such as SNOMED CT, or, ICD. It is limited to concepts
represented as terms and definitions included in standards.
This document is applicable to the following groups:
— Health informatics standards developers and standards development organizations.
— Developers, implementers, and managers of health information systems, clinical information
systems, and clinical decision support systems.
— All users of health information systems clinical data, such as health statisticians, researchers,
public health agencies, health insurance providers, health risk organizations, data analysts, and
data managers.
2 Normative references
There are no normative references in this document.
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https:// www .iso .org/ obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at https:// www .electropedia .org/
3.1
abbreviation
designation formed by omitting words or letters from a longer form and designating the same concept
EXAMPLE HL7 is an abbreviation of Health Level Seven.
Note 1 to entry: An abbreviation does not define the meaning of the word it replaces; it functions as a specific
type of synonym.
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.4.14, modified]
3.2
acronym
abbreviation made up of the initial letters of the components of the full form of the designation or from
syllables of the full form and pronounced syllabically
EXAMPLE UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.4.15, modified]
3.3
concept
unit of knowledge created by a unique combination of characteristics
Note 1 to entry: A concept can be represented using one or more terms, pictures, icons or sounds.
Note 2 to entry: Informally, the term “concept” is often used when what is meant is “concept representation”.
However, this leads to confusion when precise meanings are required. Concepts arise out of human individual
and social conceptualizations of the world around them. Concept representations are artefacts constructed of
symbols.
Note 3 to entry: Concepts are not necessarily bound to particular languages. They are, however, influenced by
the social or cultural background, which often leads to different categorizations.
Note 4 to entry: For the purposes of health informatics glossaries, a term (in a given language and context) is
considered to represent a concept uniquely.
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.2.7, modified]
3.4
context
universe of discourse in which a name or definition is used
EXAMPLE Noun, verb, country (e.g. UK), area of healthcare (e.g. Pharmacy), or organization (e.g. HL7).
Note 1 to entry: This definition differs from ISO 1087:2019 as there is a business need in the environment of
standards development organizations sharing health informatics glossary content to make context explicit and
to move towards having a single definition for a term in a specified context.
[SOURCE: ISO 14817-1:2015, 4.6, modified]
3.5
definition
representation of a concept by a descriptive statement that service to differentiate it from related
concepts
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.3.1, modified]
3.6
designation
representation of a concept by a sign which denotes it
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.4.1, modified]
3.7
synonym
one or more words of the same language that have the same meaning in some or all senses
Note 1 to entry: A synonym replaces a word in a sentence and is of similar size to that word. It does not necessarily
explain the meaning intended. A synonym is not a shortened form of the original word, such as an abbreviation.
3.8
synonymy
relation between or among terms in a given language representing the same concept
EXAMPLE Appendicectomy and appendectomy.
Note 1 to entry: Terms which are interchangeable in all contexts are called synonyms; if they are interchangeable
only in some contexts, they are called quasi-synonyms.
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.4.23, modified]
3.9
term
linguistic representation of a concept being defined in the glossary
Note 1 to entry: In this document, the word “term” is used to indicate term entry.
Note 2 to entry: A term can contain symbols and have variants, e.g. different forms of spelling.
3.10
family of terms
group of terms which define the attributes of related concepts.
Note 1 to entry: The terms in the family assists in the definition of other members of the family.
EXAMPLE The family of terms associated with Health records. The related terms in the family include,
healthcare record, electronic health record, personal health record, medical record. Health records have
attributes with include the specification of their ‘ownership’, e.g. medical records are owned and maintained
by healthcare providers, while personal health records are maintained by the person to whom they pertain.
Another common attribute is the format of the record, e.g. held in digital form – a digital health record. The term
health record can be considered the least specific, healthcare records relate to the care provide
...