Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1998 Jan-Feb;5(1):1-11.
doi: 10.1136/jamia.1998.0050001.

The Unified Medical Language System: an informatics research collaboration

B L Humphreys  1 , D A Lindberg, H M Schoolman, G O Barnett
Affiliations

The Unified Medical Language System: an informatics research collaboration

B L Humphreys et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 1998 Jan-Feb.

Abstract

In 1986, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) assembled a large multidisciplinary, multisite team to work on the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS), a collaborative research project aimed at reducing fundamental barriers to the application of computers to medicine. Beyond its tangible products, the UMLS Knowledge Sources, and its influence on the field of informatics, the UMLS project is an interesting case study in collaborative research and development. It illustrates the strengths and challenges of substantive collaboration among widely distributed research groups. Over the past decade, advances in computing and communications have minimized the technical difficulties associated with UMLS collaboration and also facilitated the development, dissemination, and use of the UMLS Knowledge Sources. The spread of the World Wide Web has increased the visibility of the information access problems caused by multiple vocabularies and many information sources which are the focus of UMLS work. The time is propitious for building on UMLS accomplishments and making more progress on the informatics research issues first highlighted by the UMLS project more than 10 years ago.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Lindberg, DAB, Humphreys BL, McCray AT. The Unified Medical Language System. Meth Inf Med. 1993;32: 281-91. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Current descriptions, documentation, and information about obtaining the UMLS Knowledge Sources are available from NLM's Web site: www.nlm.nih.gov
    1. For a comprehensive bibliography of papers published from 1986-96 on UMLS-related work, see Selden CR, Humphreys BL. Unified Medical Language System. Current Bibliographies in Medicine. 1997;8: 96.
    1. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1986: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies of the House Committee on Appropriations, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. Part 4B, (857) (1985) (statement of Dr. Donald A. B. Lindberg, Director of the National Library of Medicine).
    1. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1986: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies of the House Committee on Appropriations, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. Part 4B, (896-7) (1985) (statement of Dr. Donald A. B. Lindberg, Director of the National Library of Medicine).

Publication types

MeSH terms