Hi, I apologize beforehand if this email seems to “challenge” the existing construct of OMOP infrastructure. This is not my intention at all. I merely want to share some UK and local experience in the process of standardisation so we can engage the international community to establish the best approach for both OMOP and participating organization.
UCUM, strictly speaking is a very “different standard” as it doesn’t really need a subset. The whole point is instead of having a concept that falls within a artificial subet, we should focus on its “validity”. By that we mean the atomic unit symbols or unit atoms, multiplier prefixes and expression syntax by which these symbols can be combined to yield valid units.
Through standardizing unit of measure (UoM) locally, we feel what is really needed is not keeping adding or asking the organisation to keep submitting the “missing” units (because theoretically speaking, the list is endless), but to testify the validity of the submitted unit. There are already tools out there to support this, including the “conversion” tool, e.g. h to mins. I think OMOP should handle the “standardisation” and conversation internally but allow organisations to submit any “valid” UCUM. Basically, reconsider the construct of having a “UCUM subset”.
Having said this, during the interim, our first piece of work has identified some missing ones, is it this place you would like me to share them with you?
