title: A call for collaborative semantics harmonization.
abstract: Semantic interoperability problems occur when shared vocabularies are used for inconsistent meanings in varied contexts among distributed and heterogeneous healthcare information systems. Methods such as XML only work at the syntax level and do not deal with semantics. We are missing the tools that support consensus semantics modeling across multidisciplinary healthcare communities. Here we briefly define what collaborative semantic harmonization is and describe an early design to achieve it.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh, USA. cweng@cbmi.pitt.edu
authors.forename: Chunhua
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Weng
authors.forename: Douglas B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Fridsma
mesh_terms: D007256:Information Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012660:Semantics; D018875:Vocabulary, Controlled