Doctors are human beings – really. They don’t naturally blurt out the likes of …

Diabetes mellitus of mother complicating pregnancy childbirth or the puerperium unspecified as to episode of care

also known as ICD9 code 648.00. They select or type Pregnancy in Diabetes or perhaps the longer Diabetes Mellitus, in Pregnancy.

Here are two worlds – the… Read More »

10 to 12% of statements in VistA patient records assert a date.

We refuse no patient care statement – all are welcome. A statement may begin life in an EHR like VistA or in a HL7 v2 message or in the tags of a Continuity of Care Document (CCD), but as long as it asserts something about a patient’s… Read More »

RxNORM defines drugs. It declares that Warfarin Oral Tablet is the ingredient Warfarin combined with the dose form Oral Tablet. It tells us that this compound is sold under four catchy names, Coumadin, Jantoven, Marfarin and Narfarin.

But there’s more inside RxNORM’s awful release format, a hefty gem from the VA called National Drug File, Reference Terminology (NDFRT). With NDFRT,… Read More »

Take a look at VistA’s allergy schema and hone in on the most important field, the horribly named gmr_allergy. This slot holds the cause of an allergy which can be one of five different types:

1. GMR ALLERGIES (120_82) Example: CHOCOLATE
2. VA GENERIC (50_6). Example: PENICILLIN
3. DRUG (50). Example: PENICILLIN VK 125MG/5ML
4. DRUG INGREDIENTS (50_416)

… Read More »

Caregrafs are collections of statements about a patient’s care. While some statements declare a name or date, most use medical concepts such as a type of condition or substance or drug.

To appear in a Caregraf, a concept’s definition needs to be somewhere on the web: each concept needs its own URL, that URL must be hosted by someone and… Read More »