Making Sense of Uncoded Data

Sometimes healthcare data has no codings at all, just plain-text descriptions of conditions, medications, etc. The Terminology API helps you find appropriate codings from well-known reference code systems.

For example, you may have a patient record with a condition listed as “Asthma”, without any coding information. You can use the Standardize API to look up potential codes:

{
    "coding": [
        {
            "system": "http://hl7.org/fhir/sid/icd-10-cm",
            "code": "J45",
            "display": "Asthma"
        },
        {
            "system": "http://snomed.info/sct",
            "code": "195967001",
            "display": "Asthma (disorder)"
        }
    ]
}

Leveraging the Terminology API in this way, you can standardize uncoded or free text data.

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.