Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2000 Jan-Feb;7(1):81-90.
doi: 10.1136/jamia.2000.0070081.

Representing nursing activities within a concept-oriented terminological system: evaluation of a type definition

S Bakken  1 , M S Cashen, E A Mendonca, A O'Brien, J Zieniewicz
Affiliations

Representing nursing activities within a concept-oriented terminological system: evaluation of a type definition

S Bakken et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2000 Jan-Feb.

Abstract

Objective: A type definition, as a component of the categorical structures of a concept-oriented terminology, must support nonambiguous concept representations and, consequently, comparisons of data that are represented using different terminologies. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the adequacy and utility of a proposed type definition for nursing activity concepts.

Design: Nursing activity terms (n = 1039) from patient charts and intervention terms from two nursing terminologies (Home Health Care Classification and Omaha System) were decomposed into the attributes of the proposed type definition-Delivery Mode, Activity Focus, and Recipient.

Measurements: Attributes of the type definition were coded as present or absent for each term by multiple raters. In addition, Delivery Mode was rated as Explicit or Implicit and Recipient was rated as Explicit, Implicit, or Ambiguous. The data were summarized using descriptive statistics. Inter-rater reliabilities were calculated for each attribute of the type definition.

Results: All attributes of the type definition were present in 73.9 percent of the chart terms, 91.3 percent of Home Health Care Classification intervention terms, and 63.5 percent of Omaha System intervention terms. While Delivery Mode and Activity Focus were almost universally present, Recipient was problematic. It was rated as ambiguous in 4.8 percent of the chart terms, 8.7 percent of Home Health Care Classification intervention terms, and 36.5 percent of Omaha System intervention terms.

Conclusions: The study findings supported the adequacy and utility of the type definition. Further research is needed to refine the type definition and its use for representing nursing activity concepts within a concept-oriented terminological system.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Representation of nursing activity concepts using modified Knowledge Representation Syntax (KRSS) representation and defining attributes for procedures in SNOMED RT.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Chute CG, Cohn SP, Campbell KE, Oliver DE, Campbell JR. The content coverage of clinical classifications. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 1996;3(3):224-33. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Campbell J, Carpenter P, Sneiderman, C, Cohn S, Chute C, Warren J. Phase II evaluation of clinical coding schemes: completeness, taxonomy, mapping, definitions, and clarity. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 1997;4(3):238-51. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Spackman KA, Campbell KE, Côté RA. SNOMED RT: a reference terminology for health care. Proc AMIA Annu Fall Symp. 1997:640-4. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Martin KS, Scheet NJ. The Omaha System: Applications for Community Health Nursing. Philadelphia, Pa: WB Saunders, 1992.
    1. Saba VK, Zuckerman AE. A new home health classification method. Caring Mag. 1992;11(9):27-34. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms