# openEHR-clinical Digest, Vol 41, Issue 8

**URL:** https://discourse.openehr.org/t/openehr-clinical-digest-vol-41-issue-8/15391
**Category:** Clinical (archive)
**Created:** [19 September 2015 16:40 UTC](https://discourse.openehr.org/t/openehr-clinical-digest-vol-41-issue-8/15391 "2015-09-19T16:40:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![WILLIAM\_R4C](https://discourse.openehr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/e99b99/32.png) [@WILLIAM\_R4C](https://discourse.openehr.org/u/WILLIAM_R4C)
#### Post date: [19 September 2015 16:40 UTC](https://discourse.openehr.org/t/openehr-clinical-digest-vol-41-issue-8/15391/1 "2015-09-19T16:40:06Z")

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Hi all,

Great references and food discussion!

But, I must admit that I do not believe in any universal truths and I do distrust anyone assuming to have one. So the point should be imho to question if BFO is useful? definitely, but universal truth??? No way.!  
Is use of ontology necessary for learning about reality? Of course. And can it help with information modeling as abstraction of reality ? That point was made in the on this list very heavily critiqued paper by Blobel, Brochhausen and myself a year ago. It is good to see the OpenEHR community look different and more positively at this aspect of two level modeling[1].

[1]

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386505613002013](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386505613002013)

Met vriendelijke groet / With kind regards,

dr. William T.F. Goossen

directeur Results 4 Care B.V.  
De Stinse 15  
3823 VM Amersfoort  
the Netherlands

telefoon +31654614458

e-mail: wgoossen@results4care.nl  
DCMHelpdesk@results4care.eu  
skype: williamgoossenmobiel  
kamer van koophandel 32133713  
[http://www.results4care.nl](http://www.results4care.nl)  
[http://www.results4care.eu](http://www.results4care.eu)  
[http://results4care.wikispaces.com/](http://results4care.wikispaces.com/)  
[http://www.linkedin.com/company/711047](http://www.linkedin.com/company/711047)  
[http://results4care.wikispaces.com/3.+Cursussen+Nederlands](http://results4care.wikispaces.com/3.+Cursussen+Nederlands)

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### Author: ![Julian\_Lim](https://discourse.openehr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@Julian\_Lim](https://discourse.openehr.org/u/Julian_Lim)
#### Post date: [19 September 2015 16:49 UTC](https://discourse.openehr.org/t/openehr-clinical-digest-vol-41-issue-8/15391/2 "2015-09-19T16:49:20Z")

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Please unsubscribe me from all OpenEHR list. Yes, I tried unsubscribing it from the link but never have any success.

Thanks.

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### Author: ![thomas.beale](https://discourse.openehr.org/user_avatar/discourse.openehr.org/thomas.beale/32/35_2.png) [@thomas.beale](https://discourse.openehr.org/u/thomas.beale)
#### Post date: [26 September 2015 04:41 UTC](https://discourse.openehr.org/t/openehr-clinical-digest-vol-41-issue-8/15391/3 "2015-09-26T04:41:35Z")

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hi William,

noone is claiming access to particular universal truths; ontologies are about describing the structure of reality. Entities (e.g. anatomical structures, events like BP=xxx etc) that are mentioned in EHR data can be marked as being instances of categories in an ontology, such as BFO2:

this then enables new kinds of computing and inferencing with the data not available without the ontology, and in particular, enables the removal of certain kinds of querying errors common today.

- thomas

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