Re: [Health] ICD - Search by Disease Synonyms

[Luis Falcon]

Dear Khurram

On Wed, 18 May 2016 09:39:35 +0500
Khurram Shahzad <address@hidden> wrote:

> Dear All,
> 
> While entering the main condition in evaluation of a patient, the
> doctors often come across a situation when they are unable to find
> the diseases in the preloaded ICD.
> 
> For example, an ENT Specialist was searching for the disease "Juvenile
> Angiofibroma" and failed to find it as it never existed in ICD.
> 
> After searching the internet, it was revealed that "Juvenile
> Angiofibroma" is an approximate synonym for "Benign neoplasm of
> nasopharynx (code D10.6)".
> 
> The frequency of this issue is reasonably high. Can anybody suggest
> on how to resolve this issue? Is there anyway that we can attach all
> the "approximate synonyms" of every disease classified in the ICD in
> GNU Health?
> 

Thank you for the feedback !

Whenever we use coding standards we'll run into this. There are
trainings specifically for ICD10. The category, code, and most
importantly, de disease group, will definitely help narrowing the
search. Then daily practice will also help.

Creating a synonym structure, although possible, will be hard to
maintain, and to match against all the different coding systems (ICD9,
SNOMED, ... ).

> Same is the case with Signs and Symptoms (and probably the
> Procedures).
> 
> Moreover, we are unable to search for the diseases using the Code.
> 
We can extend the search spectrum to also look up for the disease code.
(similarly as what we did to find the medicament by its active
component)

> Thanking you in anticipation.

All the best
Luis