title: A methodology for the functional comparison of coding schemes in primary care.
abstract: There has been massive investment in the development of clinical terminologies for use in electronic patient records. However, there has been little published evidence for the added value for primary care that implementation of such a terminology would offer. This paper outlines a methodology that has been used to compare two existing coding schemes (Read codes 5 byte set and Clinical Terms Version 3-CTV3) and demonstrates their relative performance using a certainty-agreement diagram. In the study described, CTV3 offers improved accuracy and consistency with improved usability. The potential advantages of the recently released terminology, SNOMED Clinical Terms, are briefly considered in this context.
authors.affiliation: School of Information Systems, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK. phil@hicomm.demon.co.uk
authors.forename: Philip J B
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Warmington
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Laurence
authors.forename: A Toby
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Prevost
mesh_terms: D005194:Family Practice; D005568:Forms and Records Control / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000145:classification*; D008501:Medical Records, Problem-Oriented; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000145:classification*; D013222:State Medicine; D039061:Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D006113:United Kingdom