Biosurveillance evaluation of SNOMED CT's terminology (BEST Trial): Coverage of chief complaints

Peter L. Elkin, Steven H. Brown, Andrew Balas, Zelalem Temesgen, Dietlind Wahner-Roedler, David Froehling, Mark Liebow, Brett Trusko, S. Trent Rosenbloom, Greg Poland

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

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

The current United States Health Information Technology Standards Panel's interoperability specification for biosurveillance relies heavily on chief complaint data for tracking rates of cases compatible with a case definition for diseases of interest (e.g. Avian Flu). We looked at SNOMED CT to determine how well this large general medical ontology could represent data held in chief complaints. In this experiment we took 50,000 records (Comprehensive Examinations or Limited Examinations from primary care areas at the Mayo Clinic) from December 2003 through February 2005 (Influenza Season). Of these records, 36,097 had non-null Chief Complaints. We randomly selected 1,035 non-null Chief Complaints and two Board-certified internists (one Infectious Diseases specialist and one general internist) reviewed the mappings of the 1,035 chief complaints. Where the reviewers disagreed, a third internist adjudicated. SNOMED CT had a sensitivity of 98.7% for matching clinical terms found in the chief complaint section of the clinical record. The positive predictive value was 97.4%, the negative predictive value was 89.5%, the specificity was 81.0%, the positive likelihood ratio was 5.181 and the negative likelihood ratio was 0.016. We conclude that SNOMED CT and natural language parsing engines can well represent the clinical content of chief complaint fields. Future research should focus on how well the information contained in the chief complaints can be relied upon to provide the basis of a national strategy for biosurveillance. The authors recommend that efforts be made to examine the entire clinical record to determine the level of improvement in the accuracy of biosurveillance that can be achieved if we were to incorporate the entire clinical record into our biosurveillance strategy.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationStudies in Health Technology and Informatics
PublisherIOS Press
Pages797-802
Number of pages6
ISBN (Print)9781586038649
StatePublished - 2008
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameStudies in Health Technology and Informatics
Volume136
ISSN (Print)0926-9630
ISSN (Electronic)1879-8365

Keywords

  • Concept representation
  • Epidemiological Research
  • Standards

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Health Informatics
  • Health Information Management

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Biosurveillance evaluation of SNOMED CT's terminology (BEST Trial): Coverage of chief complaints'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this