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
. 1998 Jan-Feb;5(1):76-87.
doi: 10.1136/jamia.1998.0050076.

Evaluation of the Unified Medical Language System as a medical knowledge source

O Bodenreider  1 , A Burgun, G Botti, M Fieschi, P Le Beux, F Kohler
Affiliations

Evaluation of the Unified Medical Language System as a medical knowledge source

O Bodenreider et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 1998 Jan-Feb.

Abstract

Objective: The authors evaluated the use of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) as a medical knowledge source for the representation of medical procedures in the MAOUSSC system.

Design: MAOUSSC, a multiaxial coding system, was used for the representation of 1500 procedures from 15 clinical specialties, using UMLS concepts (augmented by full sources for three new vocabularies being added to the UMLS) and relationships whenever possible. Evaluation criteria for the UMLS included (1) completeness of representation of concepts and of inter-concept relationships, (2) consistency in the categorization of both concepts and inter-concept relationships, and (3) usability, including adaptability of the UMLS to a foreign language (French), its suitability to a geographic region with different medical practices than the USA, and issues relative to the annual update changes in the test vocabularies.

Results: During the MAOUSSC trial, the number of missing concepts or relationships identified in the augmented UMLS sources was deemed to be inconsequential relative to overall project goals. "Missing" UMLS inter-concept relationships were identified, although they were small in number. Some inconsistencies in the UMLS were noted, especially in the area of hierarchic relationships.

Conclusion: After UMLS was used for five years as a knowledge source for representing 1500 complex medical procedures in MAOUSSC, its value is considered significant. Future editions of the UMLS are expected to improve representation of inter-concept relationships and global consistency.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Classification of the concepts added to the UMLS vocabulary for the representation of medical procedures, with respect to the LSVT categories.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Multiple paths between “Hip Fracture” and “Fractures” with the source of the links.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Members of the “Brain Diseases” class, which have the same semantic type as their hypernym (or a hyponym of this semantic type).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Multiple inheritance of the semantic type by the “Paraovarian Cyst” concept from its two hypernyms.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Parent relationships and semantic types of the three members of the “Serous Membranes” class. Note a difference in knowledge representation: “Peritoneal Cavity” is parent of “Peritoneum,” while “Pleural Cavity” is child of “Pleura.”
Figure 6
Figure 6
Concept information for “Hip Fractures” in the Knowledge Source Server (Ancestors). Multiple trees are shown, rather than a directed acyclic graph as in ▶.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Lindberg D, Humphreys B, McCray A. The Unified Medical Language System. Methods Inf Med. 1993;32(4): 281-91. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jachna J, Powsner S, Miller P. Augmenting GRATEFUL MED with the UMLS Metathesaurus: an initial evaluation. Bull Med Libr Assoc. 1993;81(1): 20-8. - PMC - PubMed
    1. McCray A, Razi A, Bangalore A, Browne A, Starvi P. The UMLS Knowledge Source Server: a versatile Internet-based research tool. Proc AMIA Annu Fall Symp. 1996: 164-8. - PMC - PubMed
    1. McCray A, Razi A. The UMLS Knowledge Source server. Medinfo. 1995;8(1): 144-7. - PubMed
    1. Cimino J. Use of the Unified Medical Language System in patient care at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Methods Inf Med. 1995;34(1-2): 158-64. - PubMed

Publication types