Yes, UMLS is indeed a great resource! I do think one could use UMLS as a core vocabulary but with specific application context. At my company, we use it for information retrieval of clinical trials. NIH itself uses it in several of their services (MedlinePlus, ClinicalTrials.gov, etc)
In the context of EHR data-entry/documentation, using UMLS would not make sense just because of the inherent noisiness/granularity differences that come about due to the integrated view of the world. With terminologies like SNOMED-CT, you run into coverage issues and end up pre/post coordinating lot of knowledge.
Good point; I've used it as language resource for IR applications many times. What sort of clinical trial IR are you guys doing- storing and retrieving trial protocols themselves? Or is it about managing ongoing trials? Or something else entirely?
> With terminologies like SNOMED-CT, you run into coverage issues and end up pre/post coordinating lot of knowledge.
Well, yes, SNOMED is a post-coordinated vocabulary, so that's sort of the point- it's a feature, not a bug. Of course, there are so many ways to do post-coordination that you can easily end up in trouble when you try to exchange data with somebody else...
In the context of EHR data-entry/documentation, using UMLS would not make sense just because of the inherent noisiness/granularity differences that come about due to the integrated view of the world. With terminologies like SNOMED-CT, you run into coverage issues and end up pre/post coordinating lot of knowledge.