CLINICAL TERMINOLOGY PROJECTS
VHA Clinical Terminology Services
We offer a range of terminology services:
- Terminology Authoring
- VHA's MED-RT Releases
- Updates to VistA reference terminologies for Allergies, Documents and Medications
- Add new terms to VistA
- Terminology matching to align terms to international standards
- Analysis of CHDR data between DoD and VA
Medication Reference Terminology MED-RT
Standardization of Drug Reference Files:
MED-RT, a Medication Reference Terminology, replaces NDF-RT and uses modern tools and international standards for classifications. J P Systems regularly updates MED-RT and builds new releases for the VHA. Many healthcare providers use this standardized terminology within their vocabularies. We created Hierarchical Established Pharmacological Classes (EPCs) in MED-RT in collaboration with VA and FDA. Our team identified EPCs needing reclassification and moved them under newly created hierarchical EPC concepts.
VHA CLINICAL TERMINOLOGY SUPPORT
Clinical Terminology Standards Support:
The J P Systems Clinical Terminology Standards Support team provides comprehensive terminology services for VHA and Joint VA/DoD Health Information Exchange systems. These services include terminology mapping, data standardization, and modeling to enable accurate and computable clinical data exchange. Our experts support Knowledge Based Systems (KBS) by aligning clinical domains such as medications and allergies with international standards like SNOMED CT, RxNorm, UMLS, and LOINC. Also, we maintain the VA Extension to SNOMED CT. JPSys develops MED-RT (distributed nationwide via NIH), and manages mappings between VA legacy systems. These systems include VA Oracle Health systems. We utilize DoD tools like Symedical, Protégé, Health Language, DTS, and TDE. These efforts make crucial improvements to data quality, increase data interoperability, and contribute to technical functionality of electronic patient record systems.
Standard Development Organization (SDO) Consulting
We represent the VHA at international Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) such as HL7 and SNOMED International. Our presence at the HL7 work groups influences the development of data exchange standards. We report back to the client on work group activities and current ballot issues. Stemming from this these efforts, we contribute to international healthcare message standards for many workgroups. These include Patient Care, Structured Documents, Vocabulary, and FHIR.
Also, for the VHA API Developer Portal (VADP), for AMPL GUI standardization of APIs in HL7 FHIR to support interoperability.
VHA Clinical Decision Support
Supporting the accurate design, creation and firing of alerts, Clinical Decision Support (CDS) is a broad area of concern.
Across our projects, we provide Clinical Decision Support (CDS) so that VA’s EHR systems can provide clinicians with CDS functions and drug-drug interaction alerts. Many of these alerts are now made possible via CHDR, which shares prescription drug information with receiving pharmacy systems so that pharmacists and clinicians can more safely treat patients. Through our terminology mapping work, we have matched allergy reactants, allergy reactions, and medications to current data standards so that patient data can be made more readily available between EHR systems. By doing so, we have enabled cross-departmental CDS between DoD and VA.
We work to provide high quality standardized data for more reliable data for CDS systems. We also analyzed White Paper submissions and provided terminology and clinical feedback for CDS including Gastroenterology, Hepatitis C, Cardiology Cardiac Catheterization, Mental Health Homelessness, and Tobacco Assessment and Cessation.
CLINICAL TERMINOLOGY PROJECTS
VHA Clinical Terminology Services
We offer a range of terminology services:
- Terminology Authoring
- VHA's MED-RT Releases
- Updates to VistA reference terminologies for Allergies, Documents and Medications
- Add new terms to VistA
- Terminology matching to align terms to international standards
- Analysis of CHDR data between DoD and VA
Medication Reference Terminology MED-RT
Standardization of Drug Reference Files:
MED-RT, a Medication Reference Terminology, replaces NDF-RT and uses modern tools and international standards for classifications. J P Systems regularly updates MED-RT and builds new releases for the VHA. Many healthcare providers use this standardized terminology within their vocabularies. We created Hierarchical Established Pharmacological Classes (EPCs) in MED-RT in collaboration with VA and FDA. Our team identified EPCs needing reclassification and moved them under newly created hierarchical EPC concepts.
VHA CLINICAL TERMINOLOGY SUPPORT
Clinical Terminology Standards Support:
The J P Systems Clinical Terminology Standards Support team provides comprehensive terminology services for VHA and Joint VA/DoD Health Information Exchange systems. These services include terminology mapping, data standardization, and modeling to enable accurate and computable clinical data exchange. Our experts support Knowledge Based Systems (KBS) by aligning clinical domains such as medications and allergies with international standards like SNOMED CT, RxNorm, UMLS, and LOINC. Also, we maintain the VA Extension to SNOMED CT. JPSys develops MED-RT (distributed nationwide via NIH), and manages mappings between VA legacy systems. These systems include VA Oracle Health systems. We utilize DoD tools like Symedical, Protégé, Health Language, DTS, and TDE. These efforts make crucial improvements to data quality, increase data interoperability, and contribute to technical functionality of electronic patient record systems.
Standard Development Organization (SDO) Consulting
We represent the VHA at international Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) such as HL7 and SNOMED International. Our presence at the HL7 work groups influences the development of data exchange standards. We report back to the client on work group activities and current ballot issues. Stemming from this these efforts, we contribute to international healthcare message standards for many workgroups. These include Patient Care, Structured Documents, Vocabulary, and FHIR.
Also, for the VHA API Developer Portal (VADP), for AMPL GUI standardization of APIs in HL7 FHIR to support interoperability.
VHA Clinical Decision Support
Supporting the accurate design, creation and firing of alerts, Clinical Decision Support (CDS) is a broad area of concern.
Across our projects, we provide Clinical Decision Support (CDS) so that VA’s EHR systems can provide clinicians with CDS functions and drug-drug interaction alerts. Many of these alerts are now made possible via CHDR, which shares prescription drug information with receiving pharmacy systems so that pharmacists and clinicians can more safely treat patients. Through our terminology mapping work, we have matched allergy reactants, allergy reactions, and medications to current data standards so that patient data can be made more readily available between EHR systems. By doing so, we have enabled cross-departmental CDS between DoD and VA.
We work to provide high quality standardized data for more reliable data for CDS systems. We also analyzed White Paper submissions and provided terminology and clinical feedback for CDS including Gastroenterology, Hepatitis C, Cardiology Cardiac Catheterization, Mental Health Homelessness, and Tobacco Assessment and Cessation.