In Ch. 12 of Brown et al., the authors discussed the use of terminology standards in representing data and information. Concept-based controlled terminologies are used to express biomedical and health information. As we have learned in this course, standard language and controlled terminologies are important in clinical care and research in order to enable sharing and reuse of clinical information across providers, health organizations, patients, and other stakeholders. Moreover, we do understand now that these terminologies are essential to effective information interoperability, information exchange, and the needs of highly desired modern healthcare. A lack of standards in a healthcare setting may have deleterious consequences spanning the spectrum from mere annoyance to poor quality of care to, even, patient harm. Hence, shared controlled terminology standards are fundamental to safety, quality, and productivity of clinical care and research. However, as with almost everything else we've learned about in this course, controlled terminologies come with their own problems that need to be addressed. Indeed, unless development of standardized expressions of information is finally achieved, the use of controlled terminologies will not be as effective as aspired.
Your assignment is to:
Questions
- Review Ch. 12 again and read the "A Problem of Display Codes" Case Study on pp.
- This CS centers around implementation of a new EMR and the issues of standardization of display codes across a multi-disciplinary, large medical center. As you’ll see, one of the hundreds of pieces of information that need standardization is Units of Measurement.
(This is an enjoyable reading that sheds light on the problems surrounding controlled terminologies and representation of data and information discussed in Ch. 12.)
2. Address the four questions on p. 266. You may use other resources to focus your discussion. As always, make sure to give credit where it is due by citing authors/sources (in APA style).