Mapping Tool for Semantic Interoperability of Clinical Terms

Abstract

-Most of the terminologies used in medical domain is not intended to be applied directly in clinical setting but is developed to integrate the terms by defining the reference terminology or concept relations between the terms. Therefore, it is needed to develop the subsets of the terminology which classify categories properly for the purpose of use and extract and organize terms with high utility based on the classified categories in order to utilize the clinical terms conveniently as well as efficiently. Moreover, it is also necessary to develop and upgrade the terminology constantly to meet user's new demand by changing or correcting the system. This study has developed a mapping tool that allows accurate expression and interpretation of clinical terms used for medical records in electronic medical records system and can furthermore secure semantic interoperability among the terms used in the medical information model and generate common terms as well. The system is designed to execute both 1:1 and N:M mapping between the concepts of terms at a time and search for and compare various terms at a time, too. Also, in order to enhance work consistency and work reliability between the task performers, it allows work in parallel and the observation of work processes. Since it is developed with Java, it adds new terms in the form of plug-in to be used. It also reinforce database access security with Remote Method Invocation (RMI). This research still has tasks to be done such as complementing and refining and also establishing management procedures for registered data. However, it will be effectively used to reduce the time and expenses to generate terms in each of the medical institutions and improve the quality of medicine by providing consistent concepts and representative terms for the terminologies used for medical records and inducing proper selection of the terms according to their meaning.