SimulConsult

Medical professionals can get a "simultaneous consult" about their patient's diagnosis using SimulConsult's diagnostic decision support software in three ways... The database used by the software has > 6,200 diagnoses, and is most complete for genetics, neurology and increasingly pediatric rheumatology. As a clinician gets advice to consider various tests, it is very helpful to get straightforward access to information about genetic testing that is available in a way that is not confusing to the clinician.²\

For more information, please visit http://www.simulconsult.com/.

Overview

SimulConsult is a developer of diagnostic decision support software based in the United States. They provide solutions which cover three main functionalities:

Clinical Diagnostic Decision Support: Uses signs, symptoms, and clinical knowledge from a peer-reviewed database to suggest tests and present a differential diagnosis as shown in the image below.
Loss of Heterozygosity: Supports the analysis of microarrays.
Genome-Phenome Analyzer: Analyzes and reports on whole exome and genome testing.

By using SNOMED CT in the electronic reports generated by their software, SimulConsult has been able to achieve improved interoperability with other systems and EHRs.

Standards and Guidelines

Diseases in SimulConsult are linked to Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM), a catalog of Human Genes and Genetic Disorders, and additional knowledge resources from the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Tests are linked to "gene test advice" , provided by the NLM . Much of the frequency-based information is based on GeneReviews content.3 It is also possible to assess a diagnosis based on the patient’s findings, which indicates the frequency as well as the absence or presence of findings.

Using SNOMED CT

Although SimulConsult does not use SNOMED CT codes to drive decision support logic, their solution links to SNOMED CT through mappings provided by SimulConsult's terminology partner, Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO). IMO assigns proprietary codes to findings and diseases, which are then mapped to SNOMED CT. SimulConsult can be configured to use SNOMED CT terms to display | clinical findings| and | diseases| in the outputs of their software, such as patient summaries or genome analysis reports.