A method for encoding clinical datasets with SNOMED CT
Date
2010-09-17
Authors
Lee, Dennis H.
Lau, Francis Y.
Quan, Hue
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BioMed Central
Abstract
Background: Over the past decade there has been a growing body of literature on how the Systematised
Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) can be implemented and used in different clinical settings.
Yet, for those charged with incorporating SNOMED CT into their organisation’s clinical applications and vocabulary
systems, there are few detailed encoding instructions and examples available to show how this can be done and
the issues involved. This paper describes a heuristic method that can be used to encode clinical terms in SNOMED
CT and an illustration of how it was applied to encode an existing palliative care dataset.
Methods: The encoding process involves: identifying input data items; cleaning the data items; encoding the
cleaned data items; and exporting the encoded terms as output term sets. Four outputs are produced: the
SNOMED CT reference set; interface terminology set; SNOMED CT extension set and unencodeable term set.
Results: The original palliative care database contained 211 data elements, 145 coded values and 37,248 free text
values. We were able to encode ~84% of the terms, another ~8% require further encoding and verification while
terms that had a frequency of fewer than five were not encoded (~7%).
Conclusions: From the pilot, it would seem our SNOMED CT encoding method has the potential to become a
general purpose terminology encoding approach that can be used in different clinical systems.
Description
BioMed Central
Keywords
Citation
Lee et al.: A method for encoding clinical datasets with SNOMED CT. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2010 10:53.