Analysis of a Study of the Users, Uses, and Future Agenda of the UMLS
- aDepartment of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ
- bDepartment of Medical Informatics, Columbia University, New York, NY
- cCIS Department, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, New York, NY
- Correspondence and reprints: Yehoshua Perl, Department of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University Heights, Newark, NJ 07102. (Email: perl{at}oak.njit.edu)
- Received 12 July 2006
- Accepted 12 December 2006
Abstract
Objectives The UMLS constitutes the largest existing collection of medical terms. However, little has been published about the users and uses of the UMLS. This study sheds light on these issues.
Design We designed a questionnaire consisting of 26 questions and distributed it to the UMLS user mailing list. Participants were assured complete confidentiality of their replies. To further encourage list members to respond, we promised to provide them with early results prior to publication. Sector analysis of the responses, according to employment organizations is used to obtain insights into some responses.
Results We received 70 responses. The study confirms two intended uses of the UMLS: access to source terminologies (75%), and mapping among them (44%). However, most access is just to a few sources, led by SNOMED, MeSH, and ICD. Out of 119 reported purposes of use, terminology research (37), information retrieval (19), and terminology translation (14) lead. Four important observations are that the UMLS is widely used as a terminology (77%), even though it was not designed as one; many users (73%) want the NLM to mark concepts with multiple parents in an indented hierarchy and to derive a terminology from the UMLS (73%). Finally, auditing the UMLS is a top budget priority (35%) for users.
Conclusions The study reports many uses of the UMLS in a variety of subjects from terminology research to decision support and phenotyping. The study confirms that the UMLS is used to access its source terminologies and to map among them. Two primary concerns of the existing user base are auditing the UMLS and the design of a UMLS-based derived terminology.
Footnotes
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Carolyn Tilley of NLM UMLS Support provided helpful feedback for an early version of the questionnaire. However, this study was neither initiated nor supported by the NLM to assure its independence.
Dr. George Hripsack of Columbia University provided valuable advice regarding the methodology of the study and the paper.
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↵† The Semantic Navigator is available every year only for the first (AA) release of the UMLS and is made available with a delay while later releases of the UMLS are already available.29 At the time when we sent out the survey, only versions of the Semantic Navigator from 1998-2003 were available.
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↵‡ As of August 2005, the NLM maintains two separate UMLS mailing lists, one for official announcements32 and the other for announcements and discussions. When we conducted our study, there was just one unified list.
