OpenMRS Concept Cooperative.... Future service for the grid?

Just learned about this - very interesting.
http://openmrs.org/wiki/OpenMRS_Concept_Cooperative#What_is_the_OCC.3F

WHAT IT DOES:

• OCC is a collection of the cumulative concept development work of the OpenMRS community, shared and viewable in such a way to allow commonly used conventions to "rise to the top". Perhaps with enough participation, common modeling conventions, and commonly used concepts will themselves become "de-facto standards".
• OCC's foundation is the OpenMRS concept model, which represents to the best of our knowledge, the relevant metadata needed to actually drive system behavior. (Unclear how 'metadata [...] drives system behavior' -- Shaun) (Agree that it would be valuable to elaborate on this a bit more to describe how additional attributes about the concept besides the term name are needed to create flowsheets, data entry screens, and essentially anything else you want to do - Dan).
• OCC concepts can be linked to 1 to n standardized reference vocabularies (such as SNOMED, LOINC, ICD, etc)

(Does OCC have concepts...or simply mappings? "OCC Concept" could be misleading. Would it be better to say "OCC concept mappings can be linked to..." or "OCC-linked concepts can be mapped to..."? -Burke)

• OCC's key ingredient is tight linkage to the vocabulary development mechanisms inherent in the OpenMRS Base install. (May be overstating the obvious, but if the reason that 'tight linkage' is a 'key ingredient' is because it eases the oft-cumbersome process of accessing and browsing terminologies in the familiar and friendly OpenMRS interface, then it may be worth stating that very point -- Shaun) Using network connectivity, users can browse the OCC resource within the OpenMRS dictionary editor, and import concepts into an implementation.
• Implementations which import a given concept create an automatic mapping between their site and all other sites which have used the concept. They also import all of the collective work for that concept. (I think this is something that should be elaborated on. I would think that the more information about what has been mapped to a given concept and all things related to its current usage would be a huge help in mapping. - Dan) So, if any site maps the concept to a standardized vocabulary, all of the sites benefit from that new mapping. (Would be interested in hearing more about your thoughts on this particular point. As you know, we've taken a centralized approach to mapping in the INPC in part because the resources and expertise needed to do it are more than many local sites can expend. OpenMRS has taken a different approach. Either way, you want to take advantage of the work wherever it occurs. - Dan)

DATA MODEL:
http://openmrs.org/wiki/OCC_Data_Model
--- in XML  http://openmrs.org/wiki/Image:OCC_0.1.xml

WORKING GROUP
http://openmrs.org/wiki/WorkingGroup/OCC

UMLS / OCC Relationship:

Question:
If implementations utilize licensed vocabularies mapped within the UMLS (or directly from the licensee), when they share their concepts, does the OCC intend to leave the details of using these concepts with their licenses to each implementation?

Answer:

The OCC will, by the product of its ability to aggregate concepts, create necessary mappings between OpenMRS implementations. This will serve (at some point) as a possible foundation to allow OpenMRS implementations to share information between systems using messaging protocols such as HL7. However, OCC's primary intention is to serve as a pragmatic starting point for those interested in populating their own OpenMRS implementation with a dictionary that meets their local needs. OpenMRS installs will not come with a starter vocabulary over the long run.

OpenMRS very soon will come with an ability to link up to this service and browse the OCC much like they would their local vocabulary. This functionality is beyond the scope of the UMLS. Additionally, the atoms of the UMLS metathesaurus by their very nature have disparate metadata models associated with their source origins. Not a good starting point for a practical OpenMRS implementation. So, while there are similarities in what they might look like on their surface, they are fundamentally different tools for different purposes.

Look forward to thoughts on this…. a future service for the grid?   -tom