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JAMIA 2005;12:410-417 doi:10.1197/jamia.M1786
  • The Practice of Informatics
  • Application of Information Technology

Toward Semantic Interoperability in Home Health Care

Formally Representing OASIS Items for Integration into a Concept-oriented Terminology

  1. Jeungok Choi,
  2. Melinda L Jenkins,
  3. James J Cimino,
  4. Thomas M White,
  5. Suzanne Bakken
  1. Affiliations of the authors: School of Nursing (JC, SB, MLJ) and Department of Biomedical Informatics (JC, SB, JJC), Columbia University, New York, NY; New York State Office of Mental Health, New York, NY (TMW)
  1. Correspondence and reprints: Jeungok Choi, RN, MPH, PhD, School of Nursing, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032; e-mail: <jc2338{at}columbia.edu>
  • Received 23 December 2004
  • Accepted 11 March 2005

Abstract

Objective The authors aimed to (1) formally represent OASIS-B1 concepts using the Logical Observation Identifiers, Names, and Codes (LOINC) semantic structure; (2) demonstrate integration of OASIS-B1 concepts into a concept-oriented terminology, the Medical Entities Dictionary (MED); (3) examine potential hierarchical structures within LOINC among OASIS-B1 and other nursing terms; and (4) illustrate a Web-based implementation for OASIS-B1 data entry using Dialogix, a software tool with a set of functions that supports complex data entry.

Design and Measurements Two hundred nine OASIS-B1 items were dissected into the six elements of the LOINC semantic structure and then integrated into the MED hierarchy. Each OASIS-B1 term was matched to LOINC-coded nursing terms, Home Health Care Classification, the Omaha System, and the Sign and Symptom Check-List for Persons with HIV, and the extent of the match was judged based on a scale of 0 (no match) to 4 (exact match). OASIS-B1 terms were implemented as a Web-based survey using Dialogix.

Results Of 209 terms, 204 were successfully dissected into the elements of the LOINC semantics structure and integrated into the MED with minor revisions of MED semantics. One hundred fifty-one OASIS-B1 terms were mapped to one or more of the LOINC-coded nursing terms.

Conclusion The LOINC semantic structure offers a standard way to add home health care data to a comprehensive patient record to facilitate data sharing for monitoring outcomes across sites and to further terminology management, decision support, and accurate information retrieval for evidence-based practice. The cross-mapping results support the possibility of a hierarchical structure of the OASIS-B1 concepts within nursing terminologies in the LOINC database.

Footnotes

  • Supported in part by the grant NINR T32NR07969 (JC, SB) and NINR P20NR07799 (SB, MLJ).

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