title: Representation of nursing terminologies in UMLS.
abstract: There are seven nursing terminologies or classifications that are considered a standard to support nursing practice in the U.S. Harmonizing these terminologies will enhance the interoperability of clinical data documented across nursing practice. As a first step to harmonize the nursing terminologies, the purpose of this study was to examine how nursing problems or diagnostic concepts from select terminologies were cross-mapped in Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). A comparison analysis was conducted by examining whether cross-mappings available in UMLS through concept unique identifiers were consistent with cross-mappings conducted by human experts. Of 423 concepts from three terminologies, 411 (97%) were manually cross-mapped by experts to the International Classification for Nursing Practice. The UMLS semantic mapping among the 411 nursing concepts presented 33.6% accuracy (i.e., 138 of 411 concepts) when compared to expert cross-mappings. Further research and collaboration among experts in this field are needed for future enhancement of UMLS.
authors.affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, College of Nursing, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
authors.forename: Tae Youn
authors.initials: TY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Coenen
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hardiker
authors.forename: Claudia C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Bartz
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D009733:Nursing Diagnosis / Q000145:classification; D009736:Nursing Process / Q000145:classification*; D017432:Unified Medical Language System