Article: A contextual auditing method for SNOMED CT concepts Journal: International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics (IJDMB) 2016 Vol.15 No.4 pp.372 - 391 Abstract: SNOMED CT has been regarded as the most prominent clinical health terminology to be used in Electronic Health Records. However, modelling inconsistencies are preventing SNOMED CT from providing proper support for clinical use. This study introduces positional similarity sets as an effective contextual technique to identify such inconsistencies and improve the modelling of SNOMED CT concepts. Positional similarity sets are sets of lexically similar concepts having only one different word at the same position of their names. A technique to incorporate three structural indicators into the selected sets is provided to improve the likelihood of finding inconsistently modelled concepts. The results show that the likelihood of finding inconsistencies using such positional similarity sets is up to 41.6%. Such quality assurance methods can be used to supplement IHTSDO's own efforts in order to improve the quality of SNOMED CT. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: A contextual auditing method for SNOMED CT concepts

Authors: Ankur Agrawal; Yehoshua Perl; Christopher Ochs; Gai Elhanan

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, Manhattan College, Riverdale, NY 10471, USA ' Department of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA ' Department of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA ' Department of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA

Abstract: SNOMED CT has been regarded as the most prominent clinical health terminology to be used in Electronic Health Records. However, modelling inconsistencies are preventing SNOMED CT from providing proper support for clinical use. This study introduces positional similarity sets as an effective contextual technique to identify such inconsistencies and improve the modelling of SNOMED CT concepts. Positional similarity sets are sets of lexically similar concepts having only one different word at the same position of their names. A technique to incorporate three structural indicators into the selected sets is provided to improve the likelihood of finding inconsistently modelled concepts. The results show that the likelihood of finding inconsistencies using such positional similarity sets is up to 41.6%. Such quality assurance methods can be used to supplement IHTSDO's own efforts in order to improve the quality of SNOMED CT.

Keywords: SNOMED CT; contextual auditing; lexical similarities; terminology auditing; terminology quality assurance; structural indicators; structural dissimilarities; modelling inconsistencies; clinical health terminology; electronic health records; EHRs; SNOMED Clinical Terms; medical terms; health information.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDMB.2016.078153

International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics, 2016 Vol.15 No.4, pp.372 - 391

Received: 22 Mar 2016
Accepted: 07 May 2016
Published online: 04 Aug 2016 *

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Title: A contextual auditing method for SNOMED CT concepts

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