Controlled Vocabularies for Capturing Clinical Encounters James J. Cimino, M.D. Department of Medical Informatics Columbia University
Why Use a Controlled Vocabulary? Efficient storage Anticipatory data capture Record abstraction for billing, reporting, research... Automated decision support
What are the Options? ICD-9-CM ICD-10 ICPC NANDA DSM-IV MeSH UMLS Gabrieli Nomenclature Read Clinical Codes SNOMED International
Why Aren’t We Using Them? Abstracting systems provide insufficient detail Comprehensive vocabularies may be too expressive Organizational mismatch between developers and users Adaptation of legacy systems to standard vocabularies
Possible Solution: Collaborative Vocabulary Construction Users contribute to design and content Content drawn from legacy systems Contributions made via the Internet Updates in near-real time
The InterMed Collaboratory HPCC Project from NLM Multiple investigator groups Columbia University Harvard University Stanford University University of Utah Net-based collaborative research
The Collaborative Approach Agree on a domain of interest Model the domain Hierarchies Semantic attributes Contribute content
Browsers and Editors Ontolingua K-Rep AccessMED Web MED Browser
Contributions to the InterMed MED Find a class for your term in the Web browser Click on the “Add” button Enter the name Add other parents and children Refine semantic attributes Click on “UMLS” button
Outcomes Exploration of Internet-based vocabulary collaboration Expansion of domain coverage Vocabulary that fits user needs Contributions to the UMLS http://www.cpmc.columbia.edu/intermed_proj.html