Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 28, 2026

Cloud-Based Phrase Mining and Analysis of User-Defined Phrase-Category Association in Biomedical Publications
Published on: February 23, 2019
PatientsLikeMe: Consumer health vocabulary as a folksonomy
Catherine Arnott Smith1, Paul J Wicks
1University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Abstract:
PatientsLikeMe is an online social networking community. Subcommunities center on three diagnoses: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinsons Disease. Community members can describe their symptoms online in natural language, resulting in folksonomic tags available for clinical analysis and for browsing by other users to find patients like me. Forty-three percent of PatientsLikeMe symptom terms are present as exact (24%) or synonymous (19%) terms in the Unified Medical Language System Metathesaurus (National Library of Medicine; 2007AC). Slightly more than half of the symptom terms either do not match the UMLS, or are unclassifiable. A clinical vocabulary, SNOMED CT, accounts for 93% of the matching terms. Analysis of the failed matches reveals challenges for online patient communication, not only with healthcare professionals, but with other patients. In a Web 2.0 environment with lowered barriers between consumers and professionals, a deficiency in knowledge representation affects not only professionals, but consumers as well.
Related Concept Videos
Health Literacy
Health Information Technology and Healthcare Information System
Health Information Technology, commonly called HIT, integrates advanced information systems and technology in healthcare settings. Its primary functions include:
Traditional Level Of Health Care System
The preventive healthcare service includes tests for screening. Preventive health care services include identifying and reducing disease risk...
Concepts of Health and Illness
Levels of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention
In primary prevention, actions taken before disease onset prevent the disease from...
Healthcare Associated Infections I: Iatrogenic, Exogenic and Endogenic
HAIs significantly increase the cost of health care. Extended stays in healthcare institutions, increased disability, increased costs of medications, including specialized antibiotics, and prolonged recovery times add to the patient's expenses and the healthcare institution and funding bodies. Common...
