Analysis of a study of the users, uses, and future agenda of the UMLS
Analysis of a study of the users, uses, and future agenda of the UMLS
复制标题
DOI：
10.1197/jamia.m2202
复制
发表时间：
2007-03-01
影响因子：
6.4
通讯作者：
Cimino, James J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chen, Yan;Perl, Yehoshua;Cimino, James J.
目的：UMLS是现存最大的医学术语集。然而，关于UMLS的用户和用途的出版物很少。本研究揭示了这些问题。设计：我们设计了一份由26个问题组成的调查问卷，并将其分发到UMLS用户邮件列表。与会者被保证对他们的答复完全保密。为了进一步鼓励名单成员作出回应，我们承诺在公布之前向他们提供早期结果。根据就业组织对回复的行业分析，以获得对一些回复的洞察。结果：我们收到了70份回复。这项研究证实了UMLS的两个预期用途：获取来源术语(75%)，以及它们之间的映射(44%)。然而，大多数访问仅限于少数来源，以SNOMED、MESH和ICD为首。在119个报告的使用目的中，术语研究(37个)、信息检索(19个)和术语翻译(14个)居首。四个重要的观察结果是，UMLS被广泛用作一个术语(77%)，尽管它不是作为一个术语设计的；许多用户(73%)希望NLM在缩进的层次结构中标记具有多个父项的概念，并从UMLS派生术语(73%)。最后，审计UMLS是用户的首要预算任务(35%)。结论：该研究报告了UMLS在从术语研究到决策支持和表型分析的各种学科中的许多使用。研究证实，UMLS被用来获取其来源术语并在它们之间进行映射。现有用户群的两个主要问题是审计UMLS和设计基于UMLS的派生术语。
Objectives: The UMLS constitutes the largest existing collection of medical terms. However, little has been published about the users and uses of the UMLS. This study sheds light on these issues.Design: We designed a questionnaire consisting of 26 questions and distributed it to the UMLS user mailing list. Participants were assured complete confidentiality of their replies. To further encourage list members to respond, we promised to provide them with early results prior to publication. Sector analysis of the responses, according to employment organizations is used to obtain insights into some responses.Results: We received 70 responses. The study confirms two intended uses of the UMLS: access to source terminologies (75%), and mapping among them (44%). However, most access is just to a few sources, led by SNOMED, MeSH, and ICD. Out of 119 reported purposes of use, terminology research (37), information retrieval (19), and terminology translation (14) lead. Four important observations are that the UMLS is widely used as a terminology (77%), even though it was not designed as one; many users (73%) want the NLM to mark concepts with multiple parents in an indented hierarchy and to derive a terminology from the UMLS (73%). Finally, auditing the UMLS is a top budget priority (35%) for users.Conclusions: The study reports many uses of the UMLS in a variety of subjects from terminology research to decision support and phenotyping. The study confirms that the UMLS is used to access its source terminologies and to map among them. Two primary concerns of the existing user base are auditing the UMLS and the design of a UMLS-based derived terminology.