Strategy Study On Traditional Chinese Medicine Information Standard System

In China, the standard of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) information is an essential part of Health information Standardization. The study on standards about TCM terms and classification criteria has been made. In the international area, ISO/TC249, Technical Committee of traditional Chinese medicine, has been set up already and gives a new way to TCM to develop international standards. But the competition about building traditional medicine standard is still very hard.Although the TCM standard system and health information standard system include TCM information standards, there is still no standard system of TCM information. Some related studies have included some TCM information standards. But the TCM information standard system has not set up yet. A few problems should be solved at the beginning:(1) concept and range of TCM information;(2) constitution of TCM information standard system;(3) theories and models of TCM information standard system;(4) framework of TCM information standard system;(5) building TCM information standards.This paper analyses the problems in study and discusses the concept of TCM information, the need of building TCM information standard system, and constitution of the TCM information standard system. Then the strategies of building TCM information standard system are given, and finally some examples are offered as a demonstration.1. Discuss the concepts of TCM information standard systemThe definition of TCM information standard is the rules, concepts, terms, codes and technical specifications which are used in the action of TCM, such as information collection, translation, storage, exchanging and so on. General TCM information standard includes all the standards which should be followed during the entire information process, such as the information technical standards, security standards, and management standards.The TCM information standard system means that all the standards of the TCM information build an organic integrity according to their internal relations. The element is standard and the range includes the whole TCM information.There are three parts of the TCM information standard system:the preparation instruction, system framework and diagram of standard system.2. Necessity of building the TCM information standard systemBuilding the TCM information standard system fits for the country's standardization strategic deployment, and enhances the role of TCM in the health care and economy. Also, the development of TCM needs to build the system.The TCM information standard system offers guideline and framework to build TCM information standards. In another word, this system shows which kind of standards should be build first or later. But how to build a specific standard will not be discussed here.3. Constitution of TCM Information Standard SystemConnotation of TCM information standard system:an organic integrity constituted by all the standards of TCM information which have internal relation. This system includes many sub-systems which are interacted, interdependent and complementary. And its form of expression is the standard system tables.Main content of building TCM information standard system:consolidate the existing TCM information standards, build the structure the framework, and list the standards system table.Elements of TCM information standard system are standards which could be discussed by different way. 4. Construction Strategy of TCM Information Standard SystemHow to set up TCM information standard system? This paper gives the following strategies and steps:(1) study some related materials, and use theories of other specifical area like agricultural information, geographic information and so on for reference.(2) set up models about TCM information standard system as relational model and structure model.(3) according to the model, build framework of TCM information standard system.(4) list standard system table.5. DemonstrationAccording to the strategies and steps above mentioned, relational model, structure model, framework, and diagram of standard system of TCM information standard system are given as a demonstration.Models and framework show that related standards guide the construction of the system. Basic standards, also called general standards, are the base of standards of data, technology, database/product, management/security and service. Specialized standards of TCM are based on the previous 6 kinds of standards and special standards are based on the previous 7 kinds of standards.6. Summary and ProspectThis paper discusses about the TCM information standards system, including its concept, range, and constitution. By using theories and models from other studies such as agriculture information, geography information and logistics information for reference, relational model, structure model and framework of TCM information standard system are given in this paper as a demonstration. Two standard system tables are put forward in this paper.For the further study, several aspects of studies should be considered:(1) classification of TCM information;(2) the model of TCM information standards system; (3) the framework of TCM information standard system;(4) standards;(5) style and standards of TCM information service.