Overview
ISO/TS 23541-1:2021 - "Health informatics - Categorial structure for representation of 3D human body position system - Part 1: Bones" defines high‑level terminological concepts for representing 3D anatomical information in health information systems. Focused on a terminological perspective, the technical specification describes how 3D models and text‑based entities can be combined to express clinical concepts (for example clinical findings, disorders, problem lists and procedures) without prescribing 3D data structures, implementation details or software functionality.
Keywords: ISO/TS 23541-1:2021, health informatics, 3D human body position system (HBPS), bones, 3D model, terminologies, virtual medical entity.
Key Topics
- Categorial structure for 3D human body position systems (HBPS), with emphasis on bones as Part 1.
- Terminology elements such as 3D model, 3D human body model, 3D site model, 3D data element (vertex, edge, face, polygon).
- Virtual medical entities (composed of a 3D model plus a descriptive text entity) and subtypes: virtual body part, virtual clinical finding, virtual clinical intervention, virtual observation, virtual object.
- Descriptive entities (text body part, text finding, text intervention, text observation, text object) to link conventional clinical terminology with 3D representations.
- Representational relations that connect models and concepts (examples in the specification include: shareElement, isBodyPart, hasFinding, hasIntervention, hasObservation, hasObject, hasModel).
- Scope boundaries: deliberately excludes low‑level 3D data structure, implementation choices and software functionality - it is a terminology framework, not a technical API.
Applications
- Annotating EHRs and clinical records with precise 3D anatomical locations for findings, procedures and observations.
- Interoperability and clinical data exchange where 3D positional information enhances expressiveness and reproducibility of clinical concepts.
- Surgical planning, radiation therapy and image‑guided interventions that require standardized terminological links between 3D models and clinical actions.
- Research, AI and analytics, enabling computable, spatially precise data for studies, modelling and decision support.
- Patient education and AR/VR visualization, where standard terminology can link visuals to clinical concepts.
Who should use it
- Health informatics professionals, clinical terminology developers and standards teams.
- EHR and clinical software vendors, medical imaging and 3D modelling teams.
- Clinical researchers, surgical planners and teams developing AI or decision support that use 3D anatomical data.
- Organizations mapping existing terminologies (e.g., SNOMED CT) into 3D-enabled clinical workflows.
Related standards
- The specification references terminological practice and draws on ISO/TS 22789 for anatomical site concepts. While not directly altering content of vocabularies like SNOMED CT, ISO/TS 23541-1 is designed to be compatible with use of such terminologies in implementations.