Appendix A: Techniques for Autogenerating Display Terms
Three different approaches to automatically creating display terms for postcoordinated expressions are presented, ranging from the simplest to the more complex.
Replace concept identifiers with terms
Apply simple term rules
Apply description templates and rules
Please note that alternative, and more advanced approaches are possible.
When deciding what approach to apply, the following questions need to be considered:
How close does the term need to match the spoken clinical language?
Are resources available to develop and maintain the transformation rules and templates?
Replace Concept Identifiers with Terms
The simplest approach to generating display terms for a postcoordinated expression is to simply replace the concept identifiers with a term or description associated with the concept (preferably the preferred term of the applied language reference set). The result of this transformation leads to an expression that doesn't match the clinical language, but it may still be sufficient for the end-users to correctly interpret the semantics of the expression. The table below shows examples of this approach.
Examples
In the following examples, the concept identifiers are replaced with the preferred term of each concept &#xNAN;(in the US language reference set)
397181002:363698007=23416004
"|Open fracture|:|Finding site|=|Bone structure of ulna|"
336863008:272741003=7771000
“|Excision of cyst of lung|:|Laterality|=|Left|”
Simple Term Rules
To increase the human readability of the expressions, simple term rules can be applied in conjunction with the replacement of concept identifiers. Part of this involves avoiding the use of compositional grammar symbols in the terms, which can be achieved in different ways, e.g.
Replace symbols with predefined terms
Remove symbols and replace attributes with a ","
The table below exemplifies the transformation rules that can be used to replace compositional grammar symbols.
:
with a / with an
=
of
,
and
+
and
Examples
In the following two examples, the following approach has been taken to generate the display term.
Concept identifiers are replaced with the preferred term of each concept (in the US language reference set)
Compositional grammar symbols are replaced with a predefined term
397181002:363698007=23416004
"open fracture with a finding site of bone structure of ulna"
336863008:272741003=7771000
“excision of cyst of lung with a laterality of left”
In the following two examples, the following approach has been taken to generate the display term.
Concept identifiers are replaced with the preferred term of each concept (in the US language reference set)
Compositional grammar symbols are removed and attributes are replaced with a ","
397181002:363698007=23416004
"open fracture, ulna"
336863008:272741003=7771000
“excision of cyst of lung, left”
Description Templates
In some situations, description templates may be applied to ensure that the display terms of the expressions match the clinically spoken language more closely. This approach may be particularly appropriate to consider in situations where the postcoordinated expressions were originally generated using an expression template. In these cases, a corresponding description template and associated term rules may be developed more easily than when the expression was built by another method.
The following illustrates the expression template, description template and term rules for creating expressions that represent a disorder with a fracture morphology and a finding site of some bone structure. The description template specifies that the term associated with the morphology concept is always followed by the term associated with the bone structure concept, and these two terms should be separated by the term ‘of’. Associated with this description template is a set of term rules, but please note that in a real implementation, additional rules may be included to refine the transformation and ensure a proper transformation in all cases (for more information, see general rules for generating descriptions for templates).
Templates
[[+id(<< 64572001 |Disease| @disorder]]:
[[1..*]] {
[[1..1]] 116676008 |Associated morphology| =
[[+id(<< 72704001 |Fracture| @fractureMorphology]],
[[1..1]] 363698007 |Finding site| =
[[+scg (<< 272673000 |Bone structure|) @boneStructure]] }
[[$fractureMorphology]] of [[$boneStructure]]
Description Generation Rules
$boneStructure
Use the FSN
Remove the semantic tag (body structure)
Remove prefix, such as:
'Bone structure of'
'Structure of'
Remove postfix, such as:
'structure'
$fractureMorphology
Use the FSN
Remove the semantic tag (morphologic abnormality)
Remove the "," separating the morphologies, if two appear, and swap the terms
The following two examples show of how a description template and a few term transformation rules can lead to human-readable display terms.
Example: "open fracture of ulna"
@fractureMorphology
fracture, open (morphologic abnormality) → open fracture
@boneStructure
bone structure of ulna (body structure) → ulna
Example: "closed fracture of distal ulnar epiphysis"
@fractureMorphology
fracture, closed (morphologic abnormality) → closed fracture
@boneStructure
structure of distal ulnar epiphysis (body structure) → distal ulnar epiphysis
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