Glossary

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.