What is a Terminology Management Service? - OpenConceptLab/ocl_user_wiki GitHub Wiki

###Overview Data dictionaries are important tools in improving the value and interoperability of data. A data dictionary achieves this by providing standard definitions for data that is collected, analyzed, or reported. However, organizations often struggle to maintain and adopt data dictionaries, which limits their value.

A terminology management service (TMS) is software designed specifically to support organizations in the ongoing management and adoption of data dictionaries, increasing the value and interoperability of their data. A TMS does this in three ways:

1. Serves as an authoritative source of data and indicator definitions
2. Facilitates common data dictionary management activities, such as collaborative data dictionary development and publication, search, versioning, mapping to international standards, and subsetting
3. Supports distribution, through web and mobile interfaces, downloads and exports, and an API for interfacing directly with other information systems.

In health systems, the challenge of effectively and efficiently using patient data is enormous, especially given the large number of data sources, data consumers, and data standards. The following diagram depicts how a Ministry of Health might use a terminology management service to host its national health data dictionary to provide data standards to health workers and to other health information systems.

###OpenHIE - Open Health Information Exchange

Open Health Information Exchange (OpenHIE) is a community of practice dedicated to improving the health of the underserved through open and collaborative development and support of country-driven, large-scale health information sharing architectures. The OpenHIE community has been instrumental articulating a vision for data use and interoperability within low resource health systems. Terminology services play a pivotal role in enabling the exchange of health information and are therefore a key component of the OpenHIE architecture visualized below. Countries such as Rwanda, Ethiopia and the Philippines have adopted national digital health architectures that incorporate the digital components described in the OpenHIE architecture.

For more information on OpenHIE and terminology services, check out these resources:

• Architecture Overview
• Terminology Services Implementation Guide

A Concrete Example

From the OpenHIE Implementer Guide (see link above)

One ambulatory clinic might refer to a lab test as a “white count”. A hospital, however, might call the same test a “WBC”. For a computer to report and analyze these tests accurately, both synonyms may be resolved to a shared code in the Columbia International eHealth Laboratory Interface Dictionary, CIEL:678 "White Blood Cells". The Terminology Service knows that CIEL:678 is mapped to the industry standard LOINC:6690-2 "Leukocytes [#/volume] in Blood by Automated count” and can report the data in multiple formats.