Modelling and reclassification of surgical procedures--experiences from the use of GALEN methods in the domain of thoracic surgery.

This paper reports on experiences from the evaluation of GALEN methods for mapping of follow-up categories in the domain of thoracic surgery to an existing classification of surgical procedures. The mapping of the aggregated levels or groups of thoracic procedures presents a genuine problem in relation to strict hierarchical classifications, since the follow-up categories do not necessarily fit in the pre-set structure of the classification. Experiences from modelling of the traditional classification and of the follow-up categories are reported, and an analysis of the results is presented along with a discussion of opportunities and potential problems and pitfalls when applying GALEN models and tools.