Bulk Searching of SNOMED CT
Linking or mapping locally used terms to standard terminologies like SNOMED CT is a common task performed by terminologists. These locally used terms are usually provided to the terminologist in the form of a spreadsheet that lists the terms that need to be mapped and an associated local code.
Manually searching for each individual term by copying and pasting the terms into a terminology browser is a tedious, error prone task. Having the ability to copy and paste a large set of these terms and perform a bulk search over a list of terms like this will save terminologists potentially hours of painstaking work. Most of the terms in a list can typically be found quickly using this bulk search method allowing the terminologist to focus their time on the harder edge cases.
These lists of terms will typically be divided based on the types of data they represent. For example, Diagnoses will be in a separate spreadsheet from procedures, medications, etc. If the spreadsheet is broken down in this way you can easily configure your searches in a bulk search by using the appropriate standard terminology and in the case of terminologies like SNOMED CT, the appropriate sub-hierarchy.
In the below image we see our TermHub Bulk Search using an ECL Expression to constrain the search to just subtypes of the SNOMED CT Clinical Findings hierarchy.
Bulk Search using ECL expression
Another feature that TermHub supports for Bulk Searching is to filter by Semantic Tag as seen in the image below. This allows for a quicker, easier way to filter results based on only the semantic tag for a concept. While ECL is the more accurate way to filter your search over SNOMED CT hierarchies, the Semantic Tag can be a quick and easy way for new users who are not familiar with the ECL syntax.
Bulk Search using Semantic Tag
Active vs Inactive Codes
Many standard terminologies have a mechanism to identify mistakes or outdated content and inactivate corresponding concepts and optionally map them to replacement concepts. When working with real-world healthcare data, it is likely important to include inactive codes in your bulk search.
If your term lists include obsolete terms, withdrawn medications, or outdated procedures then you may want to include inactive codes in your bulk search. Most of the time you will mainly want to search using active codes but having the ability to toggle between the two options is a useful feature. The image below shows an search result finding an inactive concept when the “active only” slider is turned off.
Bulk Search including inactive codes
Seeing Multiple Results
When performing a bulk search, sometimes the first result returned will not be the actual code you are looking for. In these situations it is valuable to have the ability to view multiple potential results and then choose the appropriate code. In the example below we are performing a bulk search over a list of procedure terms returning up to 3 results (if possible) for each input term. For the term “CT abd/pelvis”, the best code to use is actually the second option.
Bulk Search with multiple results
Bulk Search can greatly improve the usability and reliability of mapping locally used terms to standard terminologies like SNOMED CT. To learn more about the Bulk Search capabilities available with TermHub you can access a 90 day trial here https://www.terminologyhub.com/ and view a demo of this tool on our YouTube channel here https://youtu.be/poS0HO9ZXqg?si=ZnSfaACaDDr8RzMg.