Bigpond wrote:
Not necessarily - it is the 'stuff' that surrounds information that gives
meaning. Reduce too far and information loses its context and is at risk of
being meaningless information - a blood pressure of 120/80 is meaningless
unless context is supplied? Ape, human, earthworm about to explode!
This is one of the reasons openEHR has a well-defined model for the OBSERVATION subtype of ENTRY: you don't just record the data, you record the 'state' (of the organism), and also of course which organism (self, foetus, donor person), along with other information.
To portray a human in digital form will require massively increased metadata
and context to relay what might have taken a 2 second glance from an
experienced clinician eg jaundice, death, fractured hip.
well, not massively increased - in fact it is not that much, it is just very carefully designed.
- thomas beale