01 Sep 08 15:07 | DeborahL said regarding StandardizationOfDataCAH:
Data Standards needed
A taxonomy consensus is certainly required for healthcare to improve patient care. There is, in fact, a gap in continuity of care across providers and facilities. The potential roadblock to adoption of standards is lack of preagreement among all parties on these standards. In other industries, the road to consensus was a long drawn-out process, often due to the exponential cost of converting to the standard but is not insurmountable (e.g. UN/EDIFACT - United Nations Directories for Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport). Software tools are available in the marketplace that can facilitate conversion to a standard taxonomy/data dictionary.

Given the spectrum and magnitude of the various types of healthcare facilities, providers and interested parties, an appointed multi-disiplinary task force is recommended to establish the standards and facilitate adoption. Expect an outcry from the general industry (e.g. HIPPA standards), but the outcomes for patients and care providers outweigh the negatives.

17 Oct 07 17:19 | ThomasWickesser said regarding StandardizationOfDataCAH:
The classical definition of taxonomy is the science of documentation of biological specimens, which involves the collection, naming, describing, identifying, and classifying of living organisms. The taxonomy model is useful in the construction of a data repository used for the retrieval of knowledge obtained from knowledge management initiatives within a business organization. The intent of knowledge management taxonomy is to provide a hierarchy in subject matter from general topics to specific information based on key word searches in a relational database structure when data mining archived tacit and explicit knowledge (The Document Site, n.d.).