Overview - ISO/TS 22558:2019 (Health informatics, TCM data sets)
ISO/TS 22558:2019 defines a classification and coding scheme for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) data sets. It standardizes how TCM data resources are described, indexed, published, integrated and retrieved across clinical, research, administrative and historical domains. The specification is focused on TCM (excluding Kampo medicine) and is intended to support investigation and management of TCM data resources in health informatics and metadata registries.
Key topics and technical requirements
- Classification principles - The standard requires classifications to follow scientificity, systematicness, scalability and practicability, ensuring stable, logical and extensible categories.
- Combined scheme - Uses a faceted + hierarchical approach: a TCM data set is described by facets (creator type, data source type, subject type), while data source and subject use hierarchical taxonomies.
- Coding structure - Codes are composed of four parts separated by periods:
TCM label . creator type code . data source type code . subject type code.
The TCM label is “TCM”; numeric code segments use fixed-digit Arabic numerals.
- Creator type - Two-digit codes identify the entity responsible for creating the dataset (examples: universities, academic institutions, hospitals, commercial companies, government, publishers, individuals, others).
- Data source type - Four-digit codes for original data sources (top-level examples: historical materials 0100, academic publications 0200, primary records 0300, 9900 = other).
- Subject type - Six-digit hierarchical codes for subject matter (examples include 010000 Management of TCM and 010100 TCM administrative management), with space for sub-categories and future expansion.
- Conformance to metadata standards - ISO/TS 22558 references ISO/IEC 11179-2 and ISO/IEC 20944-1 for metadata and coding concepts.
Practical applications and users
Who benefits:
- Health informatics teams, clinical IT and hospital data managers
- TCM researchers, academic institutions and libraries
- Government health agencies and policy units
- Publishers, registries and data repositories handling TCM content
- Software developers building TCM catalogs, search engines or metadata registries
Typical uses:
- Cataloguing and indexing TCM data sets for repositories and archives
- Enabling cross‑institutional data integration, discovery and sharing
- Supporting faceted search and efficient data retrieval for research and clinical decision support
- Structuring metadata for interoperability with MDRs and other standards-based systems
Related standards
Keywords: ISO/TS 22558:2019, traditional Chinese medicine, TCM data sets, classification, coding scheme, health informatics, metadata, data integration, data retrieval.