DyKOSmap

Maintenance support tool for mappings synchronization between terminologies

Context

Usage of terminologies, such as taxonomy, ontology and other classification schemas, is a current practice to enable:

• semantic interoperability in information exchange
• efficient information retrieval among heterogeneous information system
• and machine interpretable data.

The use of various terminology sets to organize data is a current practice, however mappings between these different sets are required to assure the interoperability of systems.

In dynamic domains, such as healthcare, terminologies are frequently updated which forces mappings to be maintained.

Overview

DyKOSmap is a tool that supports technicians in the maintenance of the mapping between terminologies.

DyKOSmap analyses changes in the terminologies and evaluate the consequence on existing mappings with other standard terminologies. The tool quickly indicates to technicians a list of maintenance actions to perform on mapping to keep terminologies aligned. The technician checks the mapping list and can accept automatized maintenance action one by one or in a bulk mode per type of action.

Maintenance action on mapping can be no action, add, remove, move, derive, change relation type, move & change relation type, derive & change relation type.

For instance, in 2010 the analysis of SNOMED CT and ICD9-CM identified about 85000 mappings and DyKOSMap reduces to 4250 mappings to be verified for which it proposes a list of maintenance action to perform automatically. The tool has proven correct recommendations in 96% of the cases.

Benefits

• Avoid full mapping recalculation and manual screening
• Save time and reduce significantly maintenance cost
• Recommend maintenance actions on mappings

Potential applications

Provide easy recommendation for:

• mapping maintenance between standard terminologies (e.g. SNOMED CT - ICD9-CM)
• synchronization between local and standard terminologies (e.g. hospital to LOINC)
• to maintain data governance tool