Algorithmic detection of inconsistent modeling among SNOMED CT concepts by combining lexical and structural indicators

Ankur Agrawal, Yehoshua Perl, Chris Ochs, Gai Elhanan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

17 Scopus citations

Abstract

SNOMED CT is important for clinical applications, such as Electronic Health Record (EHR) encoding. However, inconsistency in modeling its concepts may prevent SNOMED CT from providing proper support for clinical use. This study provides an effective methodology for locating inconsistently modeled SNOMED CT concepts. One can expect lexically similar concepts to be modeled similarly. Positional similarity sets, sets of lexically similar concepts having only one different word at the same position of their names, are introduced. Concepts in such sets have a higher likelihood of being unjustifiably inconsistently modeled. A technique to incorporate three structural indicators into the selected sets is provided to further improve the likelihood of finding inconsistently modeled concepts. An analysis of a sample of 50 such sets and for each of these three indicators is performed. The sample of positional similarity sets is found to have 18.6% inconsistent concepts. The use of structural indicators is shown to further improve the likelihood of finding inconsistently modeled concepts up to 41.6% with high statistical significance when compared to the previous sample of positional similarity sets. Positional similarity sets with different structural indicators are shown to help identify inconsistencies in concept modeling with high likelihood. Furthermore, such sets enable the comparison of concept modeling in the context of other lexically similar concepts, which enhances the effectiveness of corrections by auditors. Such quality assurance methods can be used to Supplement IHTSDO's own efforts in order to improve the quality of SNOMED CT.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2015 IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine, BIBM 2015
Editorslng. Matthieu Schapranow, Jiayu Zhou, Xiaohua Tony Hu, Bin Ma, Sanguthevar Rajasekaran, Satoru Miyano, Illhoi Yoo, Brian Pierce, Amarda Shehu, Vijay K. Gombar, Brian Chen, Vinay Pai, Jun Huan
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages476-483
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781467367981
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 16 2015
EventIEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine, BIBM 2015 - Washington, United States
Duration: Nov 9 2015Nov 12 2015

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2015 IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine, BIBM 2015

Other

OtherIEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine, BIBM 2015
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityWashington
Period11/9/1511/12/15

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Health Informatics
  • Biomedical Engineering

Keywords

  • Lexical analysis
  • Modeling inconsistency
  • SNOMED CT
  • Terminology auditing
  • Terminology quality assurance

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