Thousands of local healthcare applications have been designed to meet the specific, self-contained needs of individual users or departments. “Homegrown” terminologies make perfect sense to local users but have no way of mapping to newly required standards for reporting and data exchange. Clinical Architecture solutions are bridging this communication gap in efficient and sustainable ways.
Mapping Localized Terms to Required Vocabulary Standards
It used to be that terminologies used in local departments were often built to make sense to the local staff. After all, the lab tech knew which machine was being used, the length of the naming field in the system was limited and they were there to interpret a code’s meaning if needed. That worked then, but quality initiatives and changes in reimbursement now require the use of standard terminologies when exchanging health information.
There is a lot of effort required to convert or map a local terminology to the mandated standards. This is especially true when you consider the added amount of detail, or granularity these standard terminologies require. In some cases, with the limited information found in most abbreviated local terms, there could be dozens or more standard terms that need to be considered.
Because of the way its Cognition Engine processes terms into domain specific models, SYMEDICAL Server is able to efficiently normalize local codes into their defining characteristics. Then powerful algorithms designed for those specific domains use the available information to significantly narrow the possible matches and in many cases map to one appropriate standard term. Depending on the domain (e.g. lab, meds, conditions, etc.) it is common for SYMEDICAL Server to map or find a short list of candidates for 45 to 60 percent of the local terms in a fraction of the time it would normally take. One available algorithm configuration involves “collective reasoning” using decision made in prior maps to inform the current process.