Using a Terminology Server and Consumer Search Phrases to Help Patients Find Physicians with Particular Expertise

OBJECTIVES To design and implement a real world application using a terminology server to assist patients and physicians who use common language search terms to find specialist physicians with a particular clinical expertise. METHOD Terminology servers have been developed to help users encoding of information using complicated structured vocabulary during data entry tasks, such as recording clinical information. We describe a methodology using Personal Health Terminology trade mark and a SNOMED CT-based hierarchical concept server. RESULTS Construction of a pilot mediated-search engine to assist users who use vernacular speech in querying data which is more technical than vernacular. CONCLUSION This approach, which combines theoretical and practical requirements, provides a useful example of concept-based searching for physician referrals.