Standardizing Codings

Often, you will receive data that uses inconsistent or non-standard codings. The Terminology API helps you to identify and standardize these codings using well-known reference code systems.

For example, you may have a patient record with a medication coded simply as “59310057922”, without knowing which code system it’s from. You can use the Standardize API to look up the mysterious code:

{
    "coding": [
        {
            "system": "http://hl7.org/fhir/sid/ndc",
            "code": "59310057922",
            "display": "NDA021457 200 ACTUAT Albuterol 0.09 MG/ACTUAT Metered Dose Inhaler [ProAir]",
            "mapMethod": "ExactCode"
        },
        {
            "system": "http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/rxnorm",
            "code": "2123072",
            "display": "NDA021457 200 ACTUAT albuterol 0.09 MG/ACTUAT Metered Dose Inhaler",
            "mapMethod": "Crosswalk"
        }
    ]
}

Based on the results, you may conclude that the original data was using the NDC code for Albuterol.

Leveraging the Terminology API in this way, you can standardize data to use well-known code systems.

Operations

The following standardize operations are available:

Operation	Reference Code Systems
Condition Including problems and diagnoses.	ICD-10-CM ICD-9-CM-Diagnosis SNOMED
Medication Including immunizations.	RxNorm NDC CVX
Observation Including labs, radiology, and other observations.	LOINC SNOMED
Labs Including lab observations, panels, and reports (For mixed data, use Observation operation).	LOINC SNOMED
Radiology Including radiology observations and reports (For mixed data, use Observation operation).	LOINC SNOMED
Procedure Including services found in claims and clinical data.	ICD-10-PCS ICD-9-CM-Procedure HCPCS CDT SNOMED
UnitsOfMeasure	UCUM

Alternatively, you can use the $translate operation which is a superset of the individual domain-specific standardize operations.