Controlled vocabularies for consumer health

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Consumer Health Informatics
• Nursing Informatics

Background:

• A significant language barrier exists between patient health concerns and professional medical terminology.
• Increased internet use for health information exacerbates this communication gap.
• This mismatch hinders patient access to information, participation in shared records, and provider communication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the role of nurse informaticians in addressing the patient-provider language disconnect.
• To propose the development of structured vocabularies to improve health information accessibility.
• To enhance bidirectional translation capabilities within shared medical records.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of the language mismatch in healthcare communication.
• Proposal for structured vocabularies incorporating lay terms, definitions, and regional variations.
• Mapping lay terms to equivalent professional medical terms.

Main Results:

• Structured vocabularies can enhance consumer accessibility to health literature.
• These vocabularies can facilitate bi-directional translation for shared medical records.
• Identifying unrecognized patient phenomena can stimulate new nursing knowledge development.

Conclusions:

• Nurse informaticians are pivotal in developing solutions for the health language gap.
• Structured lay-term vocabularies improve patient engagement and understanding.
• This initiative can advance nursing knowledge and patient care through improved communication.