TY - JOUR
T1 - A review of auditing techniques for the unified medical language system
AU - Zheng, Ling
AU - He, Zhe
AU - Wei, Duo
AU - Keloth, Vipina
AU - Fan, Jung Wei
AU - Lindemann, Luke
AU - Zhu, Xinxin
AU - Cimino, James J.
AU - Perl, Yehoshua
N1 - Funding Information:
JC is supported in part by research funds from the University of Alabama School of Medicine Informatics Institute and by the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences under grant UL1TR001417 and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. ZH is supported in part by the University of Florida Clinical and Translational Science Institute funded by National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences under award number UL1TR001427 and National Institute on Aging awards R01AG064529 and R21AG061431. LL is supported by Medical Informatics Fellowship with Veteran Administration funding from the Office of Academic Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs. LZ is supported by Monmouth University Summer Faculty Fellowship. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2020/10/1
Y1 - 2020/10/1
N2 - Objective: The study sought to describe the literature related to the development of methods for auditing the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS), with particular attention to identifying errors and inconsistencies of attributes of the concepts in the UMLS Metathesaurus. Materials and Methods: We applied the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) approach by searching the MEDLINE database and Google Scholar for studies referencing the UMLS and any of several terms related to auditing, error detection, and quality assurance. A qualitative analysis and summarization of articles that met inclusion criteria were performed. Results: Eighty-three studies were reviewed in detail. We first categorized techniques based on various aspects including concepts, concept names, and synonymy (n ¼ 37), semantic type assignments (n ¼ 36), hierarchical relationships (n ¼ 24), lateral relationships (n ¼ 12), ontology enrichment (n ¼ 8), and ontology alignment (n ¼ 18). We also categorized the methods according to their level of automation (ie, automated systematic, automated heuristic, or manual) and the type of knowledge used (ie, intrinsic or extrinsic knowledge). Conclusions: This study is a comprehensive review of the published methods for auditing the various conceptual aspects of the UMLS. Categorizing the auditing techniques according to the various aspects will enable the curators of the UMLS as well as researchers comprehensive easy access to this wealth of knowledge (eg, for auditing lateral relationships in the UMLS). We also reviewed ontology enrichment and alignment techniques due to their critical use of and impact on the UMLS.
AB - Objective: The study sought to describe the literature related to the development of methods for auditing the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS), with particular attention to identifying errors and inconsistencies of attributes of the concepts in the UMLS Metathesaurus. Materials and Methods: We applied the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) approach by searching the MEDLINE database and Google Scholar for studies referencing the UMLS and any of several terms related to auditing, error detection, and quality assurance. A qualitative analysis and summarization of articles that met inclusion criteria were performed. Results: Eighty-three studies were reviewed in detail. We first categorized techniques based on various aspects including concepts, concept names, and synonymy (n ¼ 37), semantic type assignments (n ¼ 36), hierarchical relationships (n ¼ 24), lateral relationships (n ¼ 12), ontology enrichment (n ¼ 8), and ontology alignment (n ¼ 18). We also categorized the methods according to their level of automation (ie, automated systematic, automated heuristic, or manual) and the type of knowledge used (ie, intrinsic or extrinsic knowledge). Conclusions: This study is a comprehensive review of the published methods for auditing the various conceptual aspects of the UMLS. Categorizing the auditing techniques according to the various aspects will enable the curators of the UMLS as well as researchers comprehensive easy access to this wealth of knowledge (eg, for auditing lateral relationships in the UMLS). We also reviewed ontology enrichment and alignment techniques due to their critical use of and impact on the UMLS.
KW - Auditing
KW - Quality assurance
KW - Review
KW - Unified medical language system
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U2 - 10.1093/jamia/ocaa108
DO - 10.1093/jamia/ocaa108
M3 - Review article
C2 - 32766692
AN - SCOPUS:85092907988
SN - 1067-5027
VL - 27
SP - 1625
EP - 1638
JO - Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association
JF - Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association
IS - 10
ER -