Glossary - OHDSI/Vocabulary-v5.0 GitHub Wiki

For purposes of this document, the following terms are used:

Term Description
Standardized Vocabularies Contains a system of Vocabularies, Classifications, Domains and Concepts all consolidated into a common format and stored in a set of CDM tables.
Vocabulary A set of codes or concepts, including if available relationships amongst them, including if available a hierarchy, ontology or taxonomy of the concepts. Many vocabularies are adopted from national or international organizations, such as ICD-9-CM, SNOMED-CT, RxNorm, Read.
Terminology Similar to vocabulary and often used synonymously, but not used in this document.
Coding scheme Similar to vocabulary and often used synonymously, but not used in this document.
Classification A hierarchical system of concepts and concept relationships that defines semantically useful classes, like chemical structures for drugs.
Concept Basic unit of information defined in each Vocabulary.
Domain A clinical semantic category, like Drug, Condition, Procedure defined for all Concepts in the Standardized Vocabularies.
Concept Class An attribute of a concept characterizing it's classification within a Vocabulary. The difference to the classification is that a concept class is a single attribute without any hierarchical structure.

Vocab intro