Evaluating the terminology requirements to support multi-disciplinary diabetes care.

Diabetes mellitus is a multi-system disease requiring lifetime multi-disciplinary care, which has proven individual and economic benefits. The delivery of service involves co-operation and communication between patient, carer and health care professionals, and systematic auditing of processes and outcomes. Sustained improvement necessitates regular data acquisition, aggregation and analysis. The terminology requirements to support patient-centred records and identified datasets are examined, and differences in purpose and scope highlighted. The many stakeholders involved in diabetes care have their own sublanguages and terminology requirements which need harmonising around a common core. The problems and solutions of accommodating these needs are explored in relation to the Read Thesaurus.