Experiences mapping a legacy interface terminology to SNOMED CT.
BACKGROUND
SNOMED CT is being increasingly adopted as the standard clinical terminology for health care applications. Existing clinical applications that use legacy interface terminology need to migrate to the preferred SNOMED CT standard. In this paper, we describe our experience and methodology for mapping concepts from a legacy system to SNOMED CT.


METHODS
Our approach includes the establishment of mapping rules between terminologists and back and forth collaboration of the mapped results through one or more iterations in order to reach consensus on the final maps.


RESULTS
We highlight our results not only in terms of the number of matches, quality of maps, use of post-coordination, and multiple maps but also include our observations about SNOMED CT including inconsistencies, redundancies and omissions related to our legacy mapping.


CONCLUSIONS
Our methodology and lessons learned from this mapping exercise may be helpful to other terminologists who may be similarly challenged to migrate their legacy terminology to SNOMED CT. This mapping process and resulting discoveries about SNOMED CT may further contribute to refinement of this dynamic, clinical terminology standard.
Wade
Geraldine
G
Information Management, Hewlett-Packard Company, Atlanta, GA, USA. geraldine.wade@hp.com
Rosenbloom
S Trent
ST
D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D039061:Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D014584:User-Computer Interface