MED Structure

Here is a simplified example of the MED structure. If we examine, for example, the term Plasma Glucose" we can see that it is in a hierarchy, based on the National Library of Medicine's Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). It has semantic links to other terms, such as its "part of" relation to the panel of tests called "Chem 7". It also is linked to terms which provide definitional information about the test, such as its specimen and the substance it measures. Note that "glucose" appears in an example of a multiple hierarchy.