Chapter Overview
Ontology design is an important aspect of medical informatics, and reusability is a key issue that is determined by the level of compatibility among ontology concepts and among the theories of the biomedical domain they convey. In this article, we examine OpenGALEN, the UMLS Semantic Network, SNOMED CT, the Foundational Model of Anatomy, and the MENELAS ontology as well as descriptions of the biomedical domain in two general ontologies, OpenCyc and WordNet. Using the representation of Blood in each system, we examine issues in compatibility among these ontologies. The presence of additional knowledge is also illustrated and some issues in creating and aligning biomedical ontologies are discussed.
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Suggested Readings
Pisanelli, D.M (Ed.). (2004). Ontologies in medicine, Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, Vol. 102, IOS Press, Amsterdam; Burke, VA.
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Bodenreider, O., Burgun, A. (2005). Biomedical Ontologies. In: Chen, H., Fuller, S.S., Friedman, C., Hersh, W. (eds) Medical Informatics. Integrated Series in Information Systems, vol 8. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-25739-X_8
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