One-Way and Round-Trip Analysis Demonstrates Surprising Limitations of Standards-Based Terminology Maps

The informatics community has a long-standing vision of freely flowing and highly re-usable patient-specific clinical data that improves care quality and safety. We sought to evaluate the extent to which a standards-based mapping approach is sufficient to support semantic interoperability. We simulated large-scale clinical data transmission and measured semantic success between VA and DoD systems via one-way testing (OWT) and round-trip testing (RTT). Simulations were accomplished via SQL queries and production standards-based maps for medications, allergens, document titles, vitals and payers. Success rates for mapping local codes to national standards varied from 62.5% for DoD document titles and medications, to 100% for VA and DoD vital signs. Successful, one-way testing was considerably lower, ranging from 8.52% to 62.7%. Round-trip success rates were lower still, ranging from 1.7% to 76.3%. We present an error framework, lessons learned, and proposed mitigating steps to enhance standards-based semantic interoperability.