Re: [Gnumed-devel] clinician input wanted: how to implement "coding"

[Karsten Hilbert]

On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 11:11:42PM -0800, Jim Busser wrote:

> We only presently use ICD9 for billing. In the billing program that
> I wrote,

Say what ?  :-)

> >How would you *like* to use coding ?
> >Do you see any application of coding ?
> >If so, how would you like GNUmed to support that ?
> 
> I assume the above are closely related :-)
> 
> What quickly comes to mind...
> 
> - per patient, a coding system that had a nice population of
> language translations could be invaluable, judging from the (at
> best) limited translations we achieve when a visiting patient brings
> a foreign, text-based document with them. Typically we have no local
> access to someone who is both clinically familiar with what might be
> the patient's true issue AND confidently able to determine what was
> meant by the foreign clinician
> 
> - per patient, the above even applies to native speakers within the
> same language, whose meaning of text-based notes can still be hard
> to interpret
> 
> - per patient, a coding system could offer a semi-automated index of
> within-praxis diagnostic certainty (or at least of precision),
> depending on the precision that the coding clinician chose to apply,
> for example with ICD9 three or four or five character
> 
> - assisting an organ-based or system-based auto-tree within a
> patient's health issues list
> 
> - reducing small keyboard errors (mistyping words) albeit at the
> risk of substituting an item that wildly alters the clinical
> meaning, based on mistyping a code character. The UI in this context
> would take on critical importance!
> 
> - across-patient searches and groupings of somewhat-similar conditions
> 
> - defining potentially-useful language-independent queries that
> could be shared among GNUmed users internationally
> 
> - linking to internal or external clinical guideline engines that
> will surely depend on coding systems
> 
> - transcoding between coding systems, if that proved safely possible

Those are good reasons to want coding for our own benefit.

Now, *how* do we want it to happen in the UI ?

Karsten
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