scope:

This International standard defines the characteristics required to synthetically describe the organisation and content of human anatomy within a terminological system. It is intended primarily for use with computer-based applications such as clinical electronic health records, decision support and for various bio-medical research purposes. This International standard will serve to ? facilitate the construction of new terminological systems in a regular form which will increase their coherence and expressiveness; ? facilitate maintenance of human anatomy within terminological systems; ? increase consistency and coherence of existing terminological system; ? allow systematic cross-references between items of human anatomy in different types of terminological systems; ? facilitate convergence among human anatomy within terminological systems; ? make explicit the overlap for human anatomy between different health care domains terminological systems; ? provide elements for negotiation about integration of different terminological systems into information systems between the respective developers; ? enable the systematic evaluation of human anatomy within terminological systems.